The Watsons have been dug into Bradshaw for generations, the only family of note among the cluster of trailers and one-story shacks in the deep hollow. Their clan owned most of the timber leases in Coopersville at the turn of the century. This near monopoly on resources allowed the earliest Watsons to invest in coal and its related endeavors. Once they amassed enough wealth from underground, Watson Chemical and Watson Trucking provided even the most distant relations with a fortune. It stands to reason anyone who became so successful would have fled, abandoned our mountains for the thrill and luxury of a nearby city. For some reason, the Watsons decided to stick close to their roots, building a mansion at the head of Bradshaw Hollow.
The stories I’d heard about the house don’t do it justice. The large bay windows and high steeple roof loom down from the top of the hill we ascend. The brownstone façade looks like no basic brick I’ve seen, but a more vibrant red stone as if blood were mixed into the mortar. It’s the closest this redneck hell will ever come to seeing a medieval castle, and I can’t help thinking it’s cruel to build something like this so close to squalor. Maybe that’s the point. A brick-and-mortar reminder of familial power.
Russell drives up to the wrought-iron fence that surrounds the compound, presses a button on the control panel next to the gate and waits as it rolls away on the mechanical track. As the hearse creeps up the hill, I look out the passenger window at thousands of dollars in ruined landscaping. The sprinkler system has been on, dousing the flora with the tainted water. I’m surprised the chemicals could work so fast. Only a few hours and already dead wildflowers spread out in rows as the stench of fresh mulch enters our cab. A mosaic of multicolored stones weaves a path through these wilted gardens. In the center, tall shoots of elephant grass circle a fountain. The sweet scent of the water overpowers the manure and mulch, putting the taste of spun sugar on my tongue.
I’ve seen opulence in my few travels, but all those adventures have been voyeuristic glimpses over the fence. Inside these surroundings, I’m uneasy. It doesn’t help that this feels less like a homecoming than a raid. Victor is still spinning the cylinder of his revolver. Russell driving sullen and working himself up for some subversive act. I’m not too worried about Russell. This place still belongs to him. He might march angry down its halls, but the insidious haunt of home will win out. As much as he may want to act out for Victor, I doubt he can fully cast off such an essential part of himself. No, for Russell the anger is closer to a tantrum. Victor is the one to watch. Something has changed in his posture since we crossed the gate. The usual languid way he’s slumped in the seat is gone. He sits forward now, muscles tensed beneath his denim.
Caroline’s eyes open for the first time in nearly an hour. She’s beginning to sober as her gaze scales the outside terrace. All her lovers live in trailers or apartments overtop the Cherry Tree bars. She’s never seen anything like this either. It must seem like the end of a narcotic dream.
“Where is everyone?” I ask.
“I suppose my father is off doing damage control,” Russell says.
My back spasms as we park, so I wait for someone to help me rise. Russell comes around the car to assist me. The demons on his forearms lurch as his sleeves slide up. There is a mushroom cloud on his left bicep, mutated green men glowing in the fallout on his wrist.
“Should we be here?” I whisper as he helps me climb out.
“It’s all mine,” Russell says. “I’m going to do what I like with it.”
Once I’m standing on my own, Russell lifts a rock from the path and bashes it against the front door’s glass as if to punctuate this point. A spiderweb pattern begins in the center and bridges out toward each wooden border.
“It’s all just shit anyway,” he says, striking the door again before tossing the stone out into the elephant grass. It disappears in the foliage. After this violent outburst concludes, Russell looks toward Victor for approval, but Victor doesn’t say anything. He just waits for Russell to unlock the door by typing another code into a keypad, then helps the girls climb out and takes my guitar case.
Russell ushers us into a foyer so grand it feels like a parody. A high-domed entryway replaces the typical popcorn ceilings I’m accustomed to, as a crystal chandelier dangles low to greet us. Warm oak covers the walls rather than drywall. The furniture, all plush red velvet, looks as if it’s never been sat on. I follow Russell past a staircase where a grandfather clock ticks. Victor brings up the rear, his boots sullying the polish on the parquet floors. Caroline is more mobile. She drags her feet over the Persian rugs, staggers while staring at the marble fireplace.
There is a studio at the end of the long hall. The door is open, so I can see the walls inside are outfitted in acoustic foam. Two different drum kits, a stand with an electronic keyboard and a large console rest in the far corner next to a sectional couch. An array of guitars hangs on the wall. It’s the sort of setup I’ve always dreamed about in my house, but it felt like tempting fate. Almost a cruel joke to give so much equipment to a man who was never going to compose anything but tracks for others. Russell sees me looking inside and claps me on the back. It hurts, but I manage not to wince.
“Make yourself at home,” he tells me.
I’ve never written outside of my studio, but the song still plays in my head. If I don’t allow the thing to breathe a little, I’m going to lose it.
“What about our deal?” I ask and nod toward my guitar case Victor is carrying.
“We’ve got all night to negotiate price,” Russell says. “We’re going to have a drink. Can I get you one?”
I shake my head. I don’t understand where his interest has gone. Before, he’d been thrilled just to touch the strings. Now, he seems ambivalent, more concerned with Victor’s approval. It’s strange how often I’ve seen this quality in other men. A hungry need to be accepted. I never shared it. Perhaps because I knew I’d never be able to achieve it from most. Seeing how it’s made Russell act, I’m grateful to be spared the impulse.
The group retires to the kitchen to raid the liquor cabinet and watch more news coverage. I stand in front of the rows of guitars and feel a hot needling in my back. I need the pills. If I’m not going anywhere tonight, at least there’s music to take my mind off the pain. A nagging voice inside tells me I shouldn’t play with Rosita nearby. Not until I learn what she already knows, but I’m not going to follow that precaution. Without the music as a distraction, this pain will never cease.
Victor has left Angela’s guitar sitting by the door, but I decide against playing it. Instead, I take a Takamine acoustic from the rack and sit on the stool behind the drum kit. With the door open, I hear the others ravaging things. The crash of china breaking, glass shattering and the shrill burst of drunken laughter. A slam and jarring of gears as I assume the grandfather clock by the stairs is pushed over. Even the loud TV can’t drown out the sounds of Russell rampaging against his birthright.
I push the door closed with the toe of my shoe and let my fingers take over, sweep down the neck to play a soft melody. In my mind’s eye, the man is playing the same song for the boy that he used to sing to a woman when the trees still budded in the spring, a time when seasons like spring still existed and there were green pastures to lie in. Sunlight and flannel blankets, bees buzzing and birds squawking instead of the relentless winds that carry only acidic topsoil.
I’m not sure how long I play. The song feels complete, so I consider using some of Russell’s recording equipment, but I’m superstitious about such things. Bad enough I’m writing with someone else’s guitar. I can’t say when but at some point, I decided that instruments are imprinted with the experiences of their owners. I’m a little embarrassed by this belief. After avoiding my father’s religious tendencies, I feel like it’s a failure to put faith in anything intangible. I don’t follow other superstitions. Don’t even believe in an afterlife.
Still, some of Mr. Freemont’s personality stayed trapped inside his guitar after I inherited it. The wood seemed incapable of offering a bright tune. Everything I wrote with that guitar was solemn and bittersweet. Of course, that could have just been purging the pain of my childhood. I’d believe that explanation if I hadn’t written a few happy songs during those years on Angela’s guitar. That instrument felt as kind and generous as her whenever I touched it.
I don’t feel anything in the Takamine on my lap. I suspect it’s been too pent up. Unloved and unexperienced. Never seen the road or a barroom gig. Just a pretty thing without use, like everything else in this house. I hang it back on the wall thinking the guitar must be disappointed our session is over, wishing to prolong the moment like a homely man experiencing a night with a beautiful woman. I remind myself it’s only a guitar and go see about Caroline.
As soon as I step into the hall, I notice the disarray. The grandfather clock has indeed been turned over. It lies on its side, glass door shattered and the exposed face motionless. The hands are frozen on eleven fifteen. The far wall of the dining room is full of deep holes in the drywall, the wooden supports visible. Some openings are the size of cannonballs, others made by fists or boot heels. Beer cans are scattered across the floor. Cigarette butts extinguished on the hardwood.
I find them in the kitchen. Someone thought it would be amusing to discharge the fire extinguisher under the sink. Now the floor is coated in white chemical snow. Caroline holds a bowling ball overhead while Russell stands behind her watching. I can see she’s sober now. Clear-eyed and aware, which makes me wonder just how long I’ve been upstairs playing. I’m relieved to see she’s better, but disturbed to see she’s taken part in the mayhem. I almost wish she was still high. At least then she’d have an excuse. Caroline throws the ball at the far wall, where it cracks the tile over the sink and clatters into the steel basin.
“No, no, no,” Russell says. “You gotta throw it with your chest.”
He plucks the ball from the sink and throws it hard with one arm. More tiles shatter. Rosita and Victor watch from the small kitchen table. Four places are set, but the dishes and platters are all broken, the silver candelabra on its side with the white candles snapped into thirds. Victor is spinning his pistol, performing tricks for the others’ pleasure. Tossing the gun high in the air and catching it behind his back, twirling the polished steel until it’s a gleaming blur.
The destruction doesn’t surprise me, but I can’t help wondering why primitive appetites always win out in times of strife. What sends me to the guitar, seeking escape in a fabricated world when others are busy tearing reality down? Does it feel that much better to watch a bowl shatter and know you’ve kept it from ever being whole again? To look at a broken wall and feel reassured your fist can achieve that result? If that’s the greatest pleasure a healthy body can bring, maybe I’m better off.
“We’re vandals now?” I ask.
“My father’s the vandal,” Russell says. He waves his arms around the mess. “This is just some payback.”
“I doubt the law will see it that way,” I say.
Victor never stops twirling the gun. It rolls over his finger, rotating like an extension of his body.
“Isn’t that thing loaded?” I say.
“Wouldn’t be impressive if it wasn’t,” he says. He aims the gun at me, then spins on his heel, the entire room locked in his sights as he revolves around and around. When he finally stops, he gives a dizzy giggle and goes back to his tricks. Caroline applauds these antics, but I can see she’s finally sober enough to reason with.
“You stay if you like, but I need to get home,” I tell her. The money isn’t worth it. I’ll take the guitar and walk if necessary. “I’m not taking the fall for all this.”
“What we need is something real,” Victor says. “A confession.” The gun is finally motionless in his hand.
“How so?” Russell asks.
“I mean making your father renounce what he’s done. Exposing him for what he is.”
“And how would we do that?”
“We put a camera on him and make him admit everything.”
Russell smiles at the idea, but I can see he’s confused. “How do you make someone confess when they don’t think they’ve done anything wrong?”
“You make them feel remorse.”
Russell chuckles. “He’s incapable of feeling remorse. This shit is all he’s ever cared about.” Russell picks up the silver candelabra and throws it at the far wall.
“If they can’t feel remorse,” Victor says, “make them feel pain.”
I understand this logic. As a child, I waited for some equalizer, something that would square the books and force fairness into existence. The same is true for all the poor hillbillies I’ve known. Most outsiders who bother to consider us think we want equality, a chance to remove the unfair stereotypes and degradation, but we’ve never been that optimistic. We just want a sucker punch worthy of payback. A chance to make those who’ve laughed at us feel an inkling of our desperation. Despite all the speeches and zealot’s rhetoric, Victor doesn’t want to put Russell’s father under the gun to instruct him. He just wants revenge. I’m afraid if I listen long enough, I’ll want it, too. I can see it’s working on Russell. This carnage shows he’s already fallen in line more than I expected.
I turn to walk for the door, but Russell grabs my arm.
“Hear him out,” he says. “The man poisoned a whole state.”
“You’d be wise to shut this down,” I say. “Or just leave.”
“It’s my home,” Russell says.
“And that’s why it’s the perfect place to make him admit it,” Victor says. “We can cause some real change. So long as you’ve got the courage to go through with it.”
I shrug off Russell’s hand and move to the foyer. Behind me, the men are still sparking a revolution, but all I want is a bed. If this isn’t something I can escape, I’ll sleep through it.
Russell offers us a few different rooms for the night. Among them is the master bedroom that no one feels comfortable accepting, several spares and one filled with posters and rock memorabilia that obviously belonged to Russell in his youth. I bunk in one of the spare rooms where the walls are made entirely of mirrored panels. Even though I’m tempted, I don’t offer to share my bed with Caroline. By now, I believe she knows the invitation is open. I’ve almost convinced myself it’s better to be apart when she takes the room across the hall from Victor. Does such a strategic position mean she’s decided to spend the night with him? I close myself up in the mirrored room and try to dispel my worry with action.
As soon as I’m alone, I pick up the phone and dial 911. I’ve never been one to rat, but the conversation in the kitchen and the damage to the house have me scared. No answer. There is only a strange tone. Something loud and not unlike a busy signal. I try two more times before giving up. The thought occurs to grab my guitar case and walk out the gate, but I wouldn’t make it far. If I can’t even reach a dispatcher, the whole county might be burning.
I roll over onto my side, back still aching as I stare at my reflection in the mirrored wall. I’ve always found my face handsome. A strong jawline, good hair and a heavy brow that is a touch villainous. If only I could be as satisfied with the rest. I wonder if I’m the only man with an empty bed tonight. Women have shared themselves with me, but one who will stay seems out of the question. That’s why it hurts seeing Caroline lust after Victor. I’d deluded myself into thinking she could be content with just my body. Perhaps some woman could accept fidelity with a man shaped like me, but I’ve known since the early days that my life is not that kind of story. Intimacy is always going to be hard to come by. I used to accept that with some grace, but my time with Caroline has reminded me how much I missed women. If I’m being honest, how much I missed Angela.
Someone knocks on the door. I climb out of bed thinking Caroline has come to apologize, but find Rosita standing in the hall. She clutches her bag, eyes downcast as if already regretting this decision. It must be about Angela Carver. Russell has told her everything and she’s here to pry the details out of me. In some way, I’m relieved. After days of fear, it’s a mercy to be found out. Like a murderer finally secure inside a cell, maybe I’ll even sleep afterward.
“Come in,” I say.
My reflections surround her as we pass the mirrored walls. I stand in every corner, omnipresent, as I pull a chair away from the vanity. The furniture is not suited to my posture. When I sit, my body pitches forward and threatens to fold into itself like a shrimp broiling in a skillet. Rosita perches on the edge of the bed. I notice her watching one of my reflections. Her eyes measure the curve of my spine like an architect wondering how to mend a bridge’s flawed foundation. I let her look. The sooner she sees her fill, the easier this will be.
“What’s up?” I ask.
“I wanted a moment to talk with you.”
The tentative way she speaks frustrates me. I’m trapped under her thumb and she can’t muster the courage to just say it.
“Well, unless you’re offering a ride out of here, I’d like to get some sleep.”
“It’s too dangerous out there,” Rosita says. “You remember the grocery store.”
“Too dangerous out there? You really believe that after that scene in the kitchen?”
“That’s just drunk bullshit,” she says, but I hear her trying to convince herself. “We shouldn’t leave till morning.”
“We? I thought you agreed with Russell? I didn’t hear you protesting his plan.”
“I don’t bother arguing when I can’t win,” Rosita says.
I look at her legs and wonder about the shape of her calves under the tight denim. Her thighs are thick, rubbing together in a caress I admire when she walks around the room. I imagine her kissing me, pushing me down on the bed as I slide my hand between those naked thighs, feeling the muscles clamp tight on my wrist in excitement. I’m ashamed having such a fantasy in front of her, but something about our closeness in the shadows makes it hard to cast the thoughts aside. Lust always feels like a double-edged sword. I’m glad I haven’t given up that part of myself after Angela, but I can’t help knowing most women would be disgusted by my desire for them. When your body is different, the world wants to strip you of all those human impulses. To render the sick or malformed sterile. Sometimes life would be easier without those urges. I tried to tell Caroline that once. She took me to bed, pulled me between her bare breasts and stared into my eyes. “So, you’d rather not have this?” she’d asked, while I plunged inside. I loved her for that brief moment of reassurance.
“What are you doing here?” I ask. “With Russell, I mean?”
“I’m writing an article about imagery and persona in shock rock. You know, Alice Cooper guillotines and Kiss makeup? I found their website and flew to town.”
“For a shitty bar band?”
“Don’t let Russell hear you say that,” Rosita says. “He tells me you’re an influence. Is that true?”
“First I’ve heard,” I say. We’re moving into it now. One or two more bits of small talk, then she’ll be asking all about The Troubadours. Maybe even my ghostwriting.
“Why’d you quit playing?”
The question could have a thousand answers, so I choose a lie. “I wasn’t any good.”
“I don’t believe that. I had my ear to the door when you were in the studio.”
When I don’t reply, she smiles and leans close enough to whisper in my ear.
“I haven’t been entirely honest about things. I hope you’ll forgive me, but I didn’t want to talk about it in front of the others.”
I imagine her hand caressing the stubble sprouting from my jaw. I try to clear my head of these longings, but since Angela, no woman has spoken to me in the dark. No one looks at my eyes because they feel the need to gawk at the rest of me. All the hope I’ve spent years purging is beginning to grow.
“Russell told me about how you played with Angela Carver,” Rosita admits. “But that’s not why I’m here. I’m hoping you’ll participate in a project. I curate an art website that specializes in bodies.”
Here is the inevitable exploitation. A chance for cash or other promises if I will just be debased. It’s the dream offered to all the alienated. Desires fulfilled if you will only sell yourself. While the average man might incur only minor degradation, men like me are asked to endure open ridicule. What sort of pictures could she be dressing up with words like curate? Daguerreotypes of dwarves in their tiny vests fill my mind. Shadowed images of the Elephant Man struggling to hold his tumor-heavy head aloft. And I thought the mountains would guard me from these examples of carnival lust.
“What sort of bodies?” I ask. Anger edges into my voice, but Rosita looks ready for this. Her intentions have been questioned before.
“Bodies that are overlooked by society. Bodies that are misrepresented.”
“Bodies like mine.”
She takes a small laptop from the bag on her shoulder. “Can I show you some pictures?”
She turns the screen toward me and pulls up an image of a blond woman. The work is a rough draft. The red eye still present, the light filters need altering to fix the shadows climbing across the woman’s hips, but I can still see enough to understand.
In the first picture, the woman sits topless in front of a fireplace. The tone is almost boudoir photography, the woman’s head slightly cocked, braided hair dangling like a golden tassel between breasts that have been burned so long ago they couldn’t develop naturally. I trace the texture of the scars, the way each pore of the skin has let the burn form in a different shade and severity. Flesh rendered elderly and wrinkled in one spot yet maintaining an incredulous pink in others as if insistent on keeping a modicum of youth. Over 70 percent of her body must have been covered in flame.
Rosita presses a button. The woman is fully nude now, her crossed legs hiding her vulva. My eyes linger on those flesh columns. No part of my body is as strong and complete as these legs with their striations of muscle. They are untouched. The only other part of her so preserved is her neck. The beginning of a borderland with freckled ivory on her face, webbed scar tissue below her clavicle. An arm must have been tossed up to block the fire, a holy appendage sacrificed to save her face and create this quilt of different skin.
Certain chambers inside myself come alive looking at the girl. There is a pang of empathy that feels like camaraderie. We’ve shared something others couldn’t understand. For instance, I know this woman has looked at her body in the mirror and wondered what caused such an injustice. Knowing someone else has felt that exact emotion, regardless of how impossible it is to describe or how they chose to cope with it, that makes them less of a stranger. Still, I can’t understand what she must have thought while the camera captured her scars. The answer must be in the legs. They are so long and glorious she must have wanted to honor them in some form of preservation before age robbed the only part of herself she loves. Maybe it’s a substitute for never wrapping them around a boy’s waist. Then again, maybe she’s straddled many beautiful boys. No one ever thought I’d have a woman either. I look at two more models, an amputee and a man with a congenital condition that makes his limbs disproportionately small, before I decide I’ve seen enough.
I close the laptop and hand it back to Rosita. “What makes you entitled to this project?”
“Do I need an entitlement to create art?” Rosita replies.
“It’s someone’s body,” I say. “They aren’t oil on a canvas.”
“I’m sorry it upset you,” Rosita says.
Upset isn’t the right word. The woman in the photo is free to show herself however she chooses, but I’m thinking of all those anonymous trolls who will scorn her. Men like that will never appreciate the courage they’re seeing.
“So, you want me to do this?” I ask. “You stuck this shit out to add me to the project?”
“Sounds creepy when you say it that way,” she says.
“Maybe it is.” In the search for rare bodies, I am a worthy quest. Still, I don’t recant. I let her sit with it a minute.
“Will you pose for me?” she asks.
“No.”
The silence between us is as final as a soldier’s white flag. I walk Rosita to the door.
“If you really want to help people,” I tell her, “take more pictures of what’s happening around here.”
After she leaves, I sit up considering if I misspoke. I could always write a beautiful line, but my tongue remains clumsy in the heat of the moment. I did my best to be measured, just speak the truth as I saw it, but after gazing at the burned blonde, I’m afraid too much of the past bled in. The worst is realizing how astounding my paranoia has become. I believed I was important enough to draw the attention of a New York music journalist. Of course, she was only here for the freak show. My body is the only truly unique thing about me.
I strip and appraise myself in the mirrored wall. While every other man is interested in his paunch or growing love handles, I’ve always wondered about my skeleton. It grieves me that I’ll never see it. There are the phantasm blue X-rays the first doctors took after my father’s death. Captured ghosts that make my bones look like alien relics, but they’re poor substitutes. I want the bones outside of the flesh and in my hands where I can touch their porous surface. I want to gaze into the sockets of my own skull. Carry the empty vessel like Hamlet with the remains of Yorick. I know how insane the idea is, but it doesn’t change the wish.
I came close to a decent substitute once. Back when Richard the Third was exhumed from under that parking lot. Those royal bones gave me solace. Seeing his remains was like looking in this mirror.
According to most historians, the king’s deformity was slight. A skilled tailor and armorer could have hidden the affliction so that most soldiers at the Battle of Bosworth Field would only think their fallen ruler a small man. At least, until someone removed the armor to examine the wound. The skeleton in the photos didn’t look like a man with mild deformities. The vertebra bent like a strung longbow, the lower jaw hung open as if the skull were frozen in eternal laughter over the indignities. A true form of infinite jest.
The first time I looked at the pictures, I wept. It was like seeing my own open grave after the creatures that resided in the dirt finished their work. I saved the images on my computer, spent time tracing that track of spine until I could mark its margins perfectly in the air. At night, I’d lie in bed and form the shape on my ceiling like a prisoner imagining the constellations in a free sky. The more I remember those bones as my reflection watches me, the more Rosita’s pictures begin to make sense. Bodies that just wish to be seen while they are here.
I believe Angela loved my body. I know she took pleasure in it and provided the only love it has ever known. Considering this, I begin to feel very guilty about my contemplated betrayal. I sit on the edge of the bed, open the guitar case and play a single soft ballad. The wood feels warm and inviting against my bare thighs. The sheets are cold underneath me. At the end of the song, I take the record out of the hidden pouch and snap it into four equal pieces. I stick them back into the case, toss the guitar on top of them and lie back down. Things should feel easier with the temptation gone, but I can’t help chuckling thinking of that king’s skull. The way it seemed to be laughing at some final joke keeps me awake all night.