Ghouljaw and Other Stories (16 page)

“It wasn’t like that,” Deacon whispered through clenched teeth. His eyes looked watery, feverish. “You tell lies.”

“Deacon,” the program coordinator finally said, lifting the clipboard, recrossing her legs and affecting an expression of deep thought. “It takes a lot of courage, and a lot of trust, for people to share their thoughts and feelings inside the circle . . .”

Deacon sprang from his chair and lunged across the circle. Tom, the swim coach, was the first to grab him, followed by several others who pulled him to the floor. Deacon, his vision tear-blurred, strained to catch sight of the thing across the circle. The chair was, of course, empty. Deacon started cursing, screaming for everyone to leave him alone.

The thing still had its hand on Deacon’s shoulder when he opened his eyes. The snow was still falling. The car alarm had stopped. He looked down at his glass, the amber whiskey, and the half-drunk bottle sitting on the sill.

“Why did Paul call tonight?” the thing asked.

Deacon thought about taking a drink and paused. His throat constricted slowly. He winced, choking back a surge that threatened to rack his body with waves of tears. Leaning forward, Deacon pressed his forehead against the frosted window. The cold calmed him, sobered his senses a little. The thing, whose grip had before been almost tender, now tightened on Deacon’s shoulder. “Speak, Deacon.”

He stared at the snow—at the random descent of white flecks sailing across streetlights and tree limbs and layering the ground. Like leaves, he thought, like autumn. Deacon thought about the sound of leaves chattering across the pavement at twilight. He remembered one Halloween, when he was eight years old, he’d convinced his father to take him to a haunted house—a cheap, small-town thing. Paul, mimicking his older brother’s excitement, wanted to be included too. Citing the boys’ age and delicate impressionability, Deacon’s mother had been reluctant. It’ll be harmless, his father said, wrapping an arm around his wife and kissing her on the cheek. It’ll be a guy thing.

The Stilwell family arrived at sunset. Deacon’s mother, still objecting, said she’d wait outside. As the line wound toward the entrance, Deacon listened to the screaming, the torture chamber noises, and concocted all sorts of horrors that might be in store. From time to time he’d glanced down behind him, at Paul—his small solemn face obscured by tall shadows.

They were several yards from the entrance when Deacon’s father laid a large hand on his shoulder and leaned over. “Don’t be afraid,” he’d whispered, “they can’t hurt you. No one’s allowed to touch you in there. It’s all just make-believe—just for fun, okay?” Deacon nodded. A few seconds before they stepped through the entrance, his dad said, “Watch after your brother.” Deacon peered down, held out his hand, and Paul took hold.

The cloying atmosphere inside—the lurching strobe lights; the sour smell of sweat and latex; disguised people looming over him, breathing heavily under their masks—had been too much, and Deacon kept his head down until it was all over. Eventually they exited through a thick black curtain, stepping into cool evening air. Deacon quickly spotted his mother, who’d been waiting on the leaf-littered sidewalk next to the parking lot. Her expression, as she approached, became pained, sympathetic. He followed his mother’s gaze down to Paul, who continued to grip Deacon’s hand while wiping away tears from his small, swollen face. Deacon had been too disoriented to notice. Shaking his head, Deacon’s father had immediately, and repeatedly, apologized to his sons and to their mother. I didn’t know it’d be that bad, he’d said.
I’m sorry, boys
. Deacon wanted to put some distance between himself and the awful noise that continued to spill from the building—noise that had seemed to grow louder, more discordant. He’d turned and started toward the parking lot, trying to yank free from his little brother, whose tiny hand clasped tighter.

The thing loosened its grip on Deacon’s shoulder.

Deacon, head pressed against the window, nodded.

“Speak, Deacon.”

“I’m sorry,” he said.

The thing, again, coughed or laughed, making a phlegm-ragged sound. “Do you know what to do?”

“Yes,” he said.

“Besides,” the thing said, its hand slipping off Deacon’s shoulder, “you would have been a piss-poor poet anyway.”

Deacon straightened up, grabbed the half-empty bottle, and whirled around. He caught an inky glimpse of something writhing, blending with the shadows, as he heaved the bottle across the darkened room. Glass shattered against the living room wall. Deacon reeled forward and fell, smashing through the coffee table. The orange-tinted ceiling swirled above him, and the smell of whiskey—which was trickling down the wall, bleeding into the carpet—permeated the tiny room. He got to his feet and scrambled for the hallway. His coat, still damp, was crumpled on the floor near the door. Tugging on his cap and yanking up his collar, Deacon half fell, half staggered down the stairwell. Soon he was outside, his frantic breathing visible in foggy bursts that trailed behind him as he weaved along the sidewalk—doubling back over a path he’d trampled only hours earlier. His footprints long erased by a sylphic blanket of unceasing snow.

Deacon walked for blocks, to the L station. He walked unevenly, pushing through the turnstiles, stomping up the fenced-in stairs. He made his way to the wood-planked platform, to the edge overlooking the black railway tracks. A silver train, its headlights twinkling through slanting snow, came to a stop in front of Deacon. The doors slid open and he stepped in. Deacon dozed as the train swayed, traveling south, toward downtown.

Deacon exited the train at a subway station, emerging on a street just west of the city. Walking a little steadier, he squinted against the snow and leaned into the wind, intent on the small hazy canopy of light a few hundred yards away.

Deacon, shaking snow from his coat, stepped into a run-down bus station. Long fluorescent lights buzzed overhead as he approached the ticket counter.

Behind the smoke-smeared sheet of Plexiglas, a black-haired attendant, dressed in a blue shirt and red necktie, swiveled away from his computer and smiled. “Can I help you, sir?”

“Yes, please,” Deacon said between sniffles. His cheeks were pink. “I want to go home.”

The attendant furrowed his brow and smirked, not unkindly. “Sure. Where’s home?”

Deacon swallowed. It was warm inside the bus station. “New Bethel.”

The attendant nodded once and typed something into the computer. “Closest I can get you is Indianapolis tomorrow morning.”

Deacon tugged off his knit hat. “Yes, thank you. I’ll wait.” He shuffled toward a bench and sank onto the seat. A short time later he was lying on his side, sleeping—knees tucked up, hands folded under his head. Christmas music droned through static-lashed speakers.

If you’re reading this then I’ll consider you a friend. My name is Wallace Crenshaw, and since you’re a friend, you can call me Wally. So, friend, my first confession: Owing to my craft, I have butchered and dismembered more animals than I can (or care to) count. Yet, with the exception of dropping a languidly struggling lobster into a stockpot of boiling water, and aside from the cookery and consumption, I’ve never taken honest responsibility for the food I’m utilizing. I’ve never undertaken accountability for killing. At best, I’ve been a middleman; at worst, an accomplice.

I could say this all started with fungicides, with cattle infected with some sort of unclassified virus or bacteria. (Lately I’ve been reading about contaminated cattle feed, virulent strains of E. coli outbreaks making people sick, killing them.) I could say this started with Lacey Raymond (who I’ll get to in a minute). But in truth, this all started with Joe Moss.

I met Joe Moss about eight years ago when I was a line cook at Cobblestone Creek Country Club. I was twenty-six years old, just a bit older than Moss (because of the boot-camp parlance in the kitchen, most of us simply refer to grunts by their last names).

Unlike me, Moss was a product of formal education, part of a new breed of culinary youngbloods who’d grown up watching “celebrity chefs” on TV.

Moss looked as if he were destined for celebritydom. He was a good-looking kid: tall, dark red hair, and a scattering of sandy freckles across his nose; a quick, cocksure smile. His sinewy, well-muscled forearms and rangy physique suggested some sort of athleticism, as if he’d run track a few years before in high school. You’ve heard the phrase
never trust a skinny cook
. It’s apt here, but not for the reason you might think.

And while Moss began his informal apprenticeship with predictable youthful ambition and delusions of grandeur (I’d been there myself at his age), he also, I’m reticent to admit, swiftly began making his bones and earning our respect.

But even college boys make mistakes.

One day while we were prepping between lunch and dinner shifts, Moss casually said, “So, Wally, how long’ve you been working here?”

I’d been hesitant about disclosing too much about my personal life to a rookie, but the kid was disarming. “About six years.” Moss raised his eyebrows and bobbed his head, not glancing up from his cutting board. We had a scratched-to-hell Anthrax CD playing on the beaten-to-hell stereo. “Why?”

Moss shrugged. “I don’t know. You’ve been here a while, you obviously know your stuff. I’m only curious why you’re still here on the line.”

Translation: “I’m only curious why you’re still
just
a cook.” Let’s get one thing straight: I liked being
just
a cook okay, friend? Cooks have always been a marginalized, blue-collar class. It wasn’t until television started “gourmeting” our culture that pop-poseurs like Bobby Flay and Rachel Ray began elevating cooking from a proletarian utility to a bourgeois novelty. By and large cooks never make it out of the trenches. I wanted to tell him that I liked it in the trenches. It kept me close to the heart of my craft.

I’d been chopping mirepoix for a batch of chicken stock. “Are you asking me why I haven’t been promoted?” I said, trying to sound uninterested.

“Yeah, I guess so.”

At the time, we had an executive chef who was in charge of everything. Below him was the sous chef, Drew, what you might call the “under chef.” “I like where I am,” I said. “Besides, I don’t want to have to worry about all that responsibility.”

Moss didn’t answer immediately, as if crafting some response. “Yeah, but, there’d be more money in it for sure. Plus you’d have a title.”

A title
. Something to scribble on a résumé. In my heart, I was already a world-class chef.

I smirked. “But if I was the sous chef, then I’d be your boss.”

Moss reacted immediately by giving a hearty laugh. “Sure you would. But what if I got the job before you?” His smile was a convolution of misguided confidence and countryish innocence.

Now I laughed a bit uneasy. “Kid, I’ve got seniority.” In the kitchen meritocracy, it was true; but it was also tacit and tentative.

Wiping down his cutting board, Moss snorted, “Seniority.” We were quiet for a little while before he said, “All I’m saying is that if the opportunity presented itself, I’d pounce on a promotion to sous chef.”

“Maybe I will,” I said, lugging a hotel pan brimming with chicken carcasses to my work station. “Maybe I’ll be your boss someday.” And then, humorlessly, I said, “Here’s a sneak peak,” and flung the hotel pan of raw chickens onto his work station. “Get your ass to work breaking down these chickens.”

While I’m on a roll with admissions, I’ll tell you something else: All cooks are petty thieves. The fancy word for it is pilferage, and it’s pervasive.

But aside from thievery and alcohol and drug abuse, another thing our industry has a reputation for is widespread promiscuity.

Maybe it’s just that cooks are more sensual people.

You’ve heard the adage
you eat with your eyes,
right? Owing to the importance of aesthetics in the food service industry (fine dining in particular), Cobblestone Creek hired young, painfully attractive front-of-the-house staff. Diners like eye-candy (especially wealthy, bourbon-buzzed middle-aged white guys, which comprised roughly 98% of our members). Depending on the rhythm and chemistry at a particular interval, there is usually some sort of illicit, intra-restaurant sex occurring.

It’d been about six years before. Back then I was the star of the club—young, energetic, idealistic.

In her early twenties then, Lacey Raymond was a cosmetology school dropout:
“I’m only taking a year or two off, save some money, go to business school.”
The only sort of business she discovered was the restaurant business, and her ambitionless sabbatical found her in an industry with the rest of us dropouts and misfits.

Lacey had set her sights on me early on. Flirting led to drinks at a local tavern, drinks led to the occasional hook-up at my apartment.

As a receptionist, Lacey’s job was routine: jot down reservations, schedule walk-throughs for potential wedding receptions, wear a satiny blouse and black slacks, laugh at the members’ bawdy jokes, look pretty.

This industry has a tendency to chew people up and spit them out. If it weren’t for her moxie, she would have survived a shorter time than she did.

It was a Saturday night, just before the restaurant closed. On this particular night we’d run a dinner special: Steak Diane—pan-seared filet mignon—shallots, morel mushrooms, brandy sauce. A classic. Moss had been off the night before, but he’d called in sick for his Saturday shift; his absence filled me with a lukewarm sort of glee—the opportunity to give him shit about flaking out.

After I finished scrubbing down the gas range, I checked over the requisition order for the following Monday, knotted up a couple garbage-pregnant trash bags and headed for the back dock. This was late spring, the night-cool air felt like a reward after a long day in front of the stove. Off toward the golf course came the raspy chatter of cicadas. Next to the dumpsters, grassy scents of late spring mingled with the fruity-putrid aroma of garbage.