Authors: Don Hoesel
Franklin, Tennessee
CJ Baxter, more than seven hundred miles away, was in the middle of a very pleasant dream. In it, he was reading a chapter from one of his books to an audience of fans and critics. He was onstage in Greensboro’s Carolina Theater, which was too large a venue for the size of one of CJ’s real audiences (he’d read there more than once, and the auditorium was never more than half-f), but his dream allowed for a packed house. And because this was a dream, the audience was divided neatly in two, with the critics to his left, and his fans, the ones who actually enjoyed his books, on the right. The house lights were up, but for some reason there was a spotlight on him, and he was sweating. He took a sip from the glass of water on the podium and then cleared his throat.
He was reading chapter seven from his latest novel,
The Buffalo
Hunter
. Now a few months separated from the book’s release, CJ realized that while
The Buffalo Hunter
wasn’t a horrible title, he should have acquiesced to his editor, who understood that the name would not sit well with those of his readership who were accustomed to titles that lent themselves to some kind of symbolism, or at least titles that weren’t too spot-on in describing the protagonist.
Nonetheless, the book itself was good—probably the best he’d written. And he was particularly proud of the seventh chapter. In it the protagonist, a man more analogous to the lower half of Appalachia than to Upstate New York— where most of his novels, including this one, were set—found the body of his daughter. She’d been murdered, her tiny body left in the rustic cabin he kept on the river. It was the inciting moment, and there was some critical banter as to its position in the story. CJ had placed it late, muddying the start of the second act, and that decision had cost him some points with the critics. But like much of the criticism he received, CJ weighed this against his belief that the moment happened when it happened, and who was he to argue against it?
As he read, there was a part of him that remained aware of the effect he was having on his audience. He thought that any writer who had participated in enough of these sorts of things learned it was more than a matter of reading the text. The writer had to feel the way the audience was responding to the reading—had to engage in some symbiotic give-and-take, a feeding off of each other’s energy. Of course, that was only if the writer was at all interested in the event becoming something more than killing time for the audience; and with the sheer number of things competing for a writer’s attention, those instances were infrequent.
Tonight, though, CJ could feel it. As he read, he could intuit the ebb and flow of emotional resonance in the house, how the audience reacted to each word he said. He felt good as he moved through the story, and knew that he was connecting with them. And while he couldn’t lift his eyes away from the page long enough to verify his suspicion, he thought that even the critics were falling under his spell.
He was almost to the end, to the place where the hunter bursts through the door to find his little angel tossed like a rag doll near the furnace, and he could feel the emotion building in the room, even though every person present had already read the book, so nothing he was reading was a surprise. What they were responding to was the passion he himself had for the story; they were eating up the way he felt when he had written it, when his fingers flew over the keyboard as the girl’s fate revealed itself to both the hunter and the writer.
It was a flawless reading, a perfect meeting of author passion and audience expectation, and when he was finished, when the hunter’s anguished cry ripped itself from the page and tore something from the hearts of each one perched on the edge of his or her seat, CJ felt a sense of accomplishment that was seldom rivaled, except when he was sitting alone in his office crafting the words.
The first patters of applause started in that pregnant moment before he closed the book and looked up, and it grew as he took another sip from the almost empty water glass. He rarely enjoyed readings, and he liked them even less now that his books sold well enough without them. But early in his career, both his editor and his agent had impressed upon him the importance of doing them. He supposed that it was simply an ingrained part of the publishing business, and he always felt some guilt if he considered cutting these face-to-face sessions out of his schedule, even though he’d received the National Book Award for his last novel, with one of his books having been made into a movie. He was in that comfortable spot where he’d achieved commercial success without sacrificing his literary style. Still, all of it could be snatched away if he neglected his responsibilities to his fans. But this time, at least in the dream, he was enjoying the experience, and was even looking forward to the Q and A, though he knew the first question was likely to be about the title.
As he gazed into the audience, he noticed the spotlight more, and it bothered him, especially now that the house lights seemed to have faded to black without his realizing it. Looking out into seats he could see only dimly, it was difficult to pick out individual people. What he saw were the small movements of clapping hands that, in the dark, looked like disparate blurs.
Then, through the blackness, as it became more difficult to see the moving hands, and as the sound of clapping fell away, one noise began to grow in volume, eclipsing all others. A man’s voice, and from somewhere out in the audience it called out to CJ. As he listened, the man CJ could not see began to catalog out loud all the faults with
The Buffalo Hunter
. It was a litany of imperfections that marked it as a fatally flawed work of literature, and with each flaw there was a compelling argument to support his analysis.
Onstage, bathed in the spotlight, CJ had no defense against the assault. He felt naked. It was difficult to listen to the voice go on about his book, tearing it apart chapter by chapter, scene by scene. The thing that really hurt was that CJ found he couldn’t fault the man a single point. The more the man talked, the more CJ came to believe that the book he had only a few minutes ago considered his best work was in fact just another piece of second-rate fiction.
It was a humbling position, and not one to which CJ was accustomed. He wanted nothing more than to make it stop. Consequently, he did the first thing that came to him. He lifted the closed book from the podium and started down the steps, heading down the center aisle and toward the voice. He could barely make out the people on either side of him as he passed the rows of seats. After he had walked by perhaps fifteen rows, it was as if a small spotlight came on, illuminating a single person. CJ recognized him as a writer for the
Southern Review
. The man had attended a number of CJ’s readings, and up to now had always been cordial. Now, though, he was deep into his evisceration of CJ’s novel.
CJ didn’t even slow as he approached the man, and it was with a smooth but vicious swing that he brought the spine of the book into contact with the reviewer’s head.
When Charles Jefferson Baxter rolled over in bed, he didn’t have to open his eyes to realize that it was going to be a bad day. For one thing, his head was pounding, and he knew this particular feeling well enough to understand the headache would stay with him until at least early afternoon, regardless of any medication he might take for it. And since he was supposed to meet his editor for lunch at noon, then afterward head over to the house to pick up the last of his things, he did not need to be hobbled by stabbing pain in his head.
With a groan, he opened his eyes to look at the clock. It read 7:30, which was confirmed by the light that found its way past the curtains. He closed his eyes again, choosing not to move. He hadn’t gotten back to the apartment and, consequently, into bed until sometime after 3:00 a.m., and while he was not wholly unaccustomed to keeping those kinds of hours, it had been a while. It had also been a while since he’d lost that much at cards. That thought coaxed a new throbbing from his temple, eliciting another groan.
He couldn’t put an exact dollar figure on his losses, but he guessed it was around five hundred. Not a huge sum, but with the money he would soon have to start paying Janet, he needed to begin keeping a closer eye on his finances. She wanted the house, of course, which was fine with him. And the Jaguar, which wasn’t quite as fine. His lawyer had encouraged him to save his energy for the important things—the most pressing of those being alimony. And Thoreau. Janet would absolutely not get to keep his dog.
He rolled to a sitting position and sat with his head in his hands until a bout of vertigo eased. He didn’t need to get up yet, but he knew the headache would keep him from falling back to sleep. With that thought in mind, he got up and went to the bathroom where he found some ibuprofen in the medicine cabinet and took a good deal more than the recommended dose.
As he stood at the sink, bracing himself on the counter, the dream that had followed him to wakefulness lingered. He supposed that was to be expected. After all, the events the dream had parodied had happened only two days ago. Of course, there had been a few differences. The audience hadn’t been neatly divided into two factions, there was no spotlight, and the room was nowhere near as packed. But the part about the book was pretty accurate, except that instead of taking the long walk down the steps and up the aisle to assault the man from the
Southern
Review
, he’d simply wound up his pitching arm and let the book (a hefty hardcover) go from his place behind the podium. Even with CJ’s college baseball experience, no one was more surprised than he was when the book flew unerringly toward its target and struck the man in the forehead.
It hadn’t been one of CJ’s prouder moments, but he had to admit to taking some pleasure in having laid the man out between the rows of seats. There’d even been a little blood, a small raw knot on his head.
Neither CJ nor his attorney had heard from the man’s lawyer yet, but he knew it was only a matter of time. And depending on the amount the reviewer would try to collect, it might have even been worth it, considering the cathartic nature of the incident. Too, it might not be a bad thing for his readers to consider him temperamental. Weren’t most of the great ones?
CJ ran cold water and wet his face, hoping this would beat back the pounding in his head. The headaches had been coming with more frequency, lasting longer, and reaching new pain thresholds with regularity. Matt had been after him for months to see a doctor, but CJ suspected his editor was only concerned that the recurring headaches would keep him from supporting the new book. He’d thought the headaches were just stress, and with everything going on, it seemed a reasonable hypothesis. They were getting worse rather than better, and that tracked right along with the fact that in the last week he’d assaulted a critic, been served divorce papers from his wife, and received his first ever lukewarm review in the
New York Times
. He thought it was a wonder he hadn’t had an aneurysm, all things considered. Still, CJ was beginning to question if following Matt’s advice would be the worst idea.
As he stood in front of the sink, head tilted so he could see the hair clogging the drain, he felt a curious rumbling in his stomach that quickly turned to nausea. Before he could think to move to the toilet, he vomited into the sink. When he finished, he ran the water until the brownish mixture, with half-dissolved white ibuprofen tablets mixed in like Lucky Charms marshmallows, was gone. Then he rinsed his mouth to rid himself of the sour taste. When he was reasonably sure he wasn’t going to throw up again, he took another round of pills and went back to bed.
He had almost drifted to sleep when the phone rang. After the third ring it clicked over to the answering machine, and CJ waited for his lawyer’s voice—the one that would tell him they’d been served. But it wasn’t Al. It was a voice he hadn’t heard in more than eight years.
“CJ, it’s your father. Are you there?”
Adelia, New York
Graham was out of the truck before the engine’s rumble had dissipated, which didn’t say as much about his speed as it did about the recalcitrant nature of the truck. It suffered through a series of small trembles and the automotive equivalent of a coughing fit every time he pulled the key from the ignition. The old Ford F-150 had seen much better days, but he couldn’t bring himself to get rid of it. Too many fond memories had attached themselves to the vehicle—hunting trips up the Oneida, mud runs in the lowlands between Adelia and Manchester, and coolers filled with crappie sliding around in the bed, making satisfying thumps against the sides. In all likelihood, he would keep the truck until he slid behind the wheel one morning, eight inches of snow giving the emerald green body a second skin, and turned the key to ineffectual result.
Of course, having the BMW siphoned away any sense of urgency from thoughts of purchasing a new truck. True, the X5 didn’t lend itself to the beating that driving around Franklin County would extend to it, but it would do in a pinch, and now that the road up to the house had been paved, the precision German engineering would remain as precise as its stringent manufacturing processes had built into it. But to this point he’d only used the BMW for the trips to Albany, when showing up in the truck would have made him look more provincial than was politically expedient. No, it was the Ford that was made for dusting around Adelia, where he didn’t have to play the politician.
The engine settled into a steady tick as Graham tapped a cigarette from the pack, turning away from the wind until the paper caught and held the flame. It was a habit he had to quit. His senate campaign hinged on the whole family-values package, and Marlboros seldom made for good photo ops.
Through the trees he could see Adelia waking. As he watched, drawing long and slow on the cigarette, a city services truck rolled up Main Street, stopping at the entrance to the roundabout that fronted the town hall, the courthouse, and the library. Although his vantage point made it difficult to determine with certainty, he was reasonably confident that the two men who exited the truck were Gabe and Doug. And his conviction that the cargo in the back of the truck was a Fall Festival sign was even stronger. He watched as the two men moved to the back and lowered the tailgate, and for a while longer as Gabe—he was sure of it now— climbed into the bed to wrestle with the sign.