People of the Dark (5 page)

The gas stopped pumping; he went back, took the nozzle out, checked the pump. "Eleven-forty-three. That cash or charge?"

"Cash. What about these crazy people?" I was still smiling.

"And you got rattlesnakes up there, too. You said you was up on Hunt's Hollow?"

"Yes, that's right."

"You got rattlesnakes, then. On the hills especially, and in the rocks." I thought I saw a smile flit across his lips.

I said, "Bears, too?"

He nodded. "Yep. We had a bear up there once. It mauled a goat and a ten-year-old fat boy named Freddie Wilcox. Came down from Canada, I guess. I shot it. Me and a friend. Got it stuffed and in the laundry room." He went around to the front of the car, got a bottle of Windex from the top of one of the pumps, pulled a soiled rag from the back pocket of his overalls. "Get your windshield, Mr. Harris?"

"No. Thanks."

"Part of the service; might as well take it."

"No. I cleaned it at home."

"
Didja
?" Another quick smile appeared on his lips. He put the Windex back, held his hand out. "Eleven-forty-three."
  

I gave it to him, got in the car, said thanks again, and drove into Cohocton.

A quick tour of the main street confirmed that there was only one clothing store in town, a place called Buckles, Boots, & Buttons, which, considering the character of the town, I thought, wasn't quite right. I parked in front, went in, was greeted almost immediately by a short, thin, fiftyish woman wearing a long blue dress and horn-rimmed glasses.

"What can I do for you?" she asked pleasantly.

"Hi. I'm looking for some hiking boots."

"For hiking?"

"Yes."

"Or for climbing?" She'd been standing in front of a counter filled with men's dress pants. She stepped forward, gestured down a narrow aisle to her right that led to the rear of the store. I looked, saw a small display of men's leather boots in a far corner.

"For both, I guess," I said.

"Then you want a pair of hiking boots and a pair of climbing boots."

"Can't one be good for the other?"

She shook her head earnestly. "No, sir. Your basic hiking boot has got to be lightweight, while your basic climbing boot has got to be tough and thick-soled. We got both—you buy both and you'll be okay."

"I'll buy the hiking boot, then."

She was still holding her hand out. "Suit yourself," she said, and started down the aisle first, her gait quick and stiff. She glanced back as I followed her. "You buy a place in town?"

I smiled. "How'd you know I lived here?"

"You wouldn't be shopping here if you didn't."

I told her that was pretty logical. I told her about the house I'd bought, started to say I thought Erika and I would be happy in it, and she cut in, "It's haunted, you know."

"What's haunted?" We were standing next to the men's boot display now. It was only one step away from being dismal.

"Your house. The Tanner house. It's haunted."

"By what?"

"By spooks."

She said it with a kind of casual intensity, as if she were talking about a hole that people regularly fell into. "You're serious?" I said.

And she said, "Not that I believe in spooks, of course. They're probably geysers or something."

"Geysers?"

She nodded. "Boiling water shooting up
outa
the ground. Geysers. Like Old Faithful. They shoot up
outa
the ground and they look like spooks, especially at night."

"You're joking with me, aren't you?"

She smiled very broadly, much too broadly, in fact, for my question. "I don't joke much, but I do joke some," she said.

"And you're joking now?"

"I'm telling you what I've heard. Maybe I'm passing on a joke; maybe I'm not. Here's the hiking boots; I got your basic ankle-high, your mid-calf, and your knee-high. Which one would you like?"

I bought the mid-calf, which she approved of. "Rattlesnakes can't get you, then," she said.

I smiled, said, "Sure, thanks, and neither can the bears," and went to C. R. Boring Hardware to ask about gutters.

It was one of five hardware stores in Cohocton; they ran from slick to grim. C. R. Boring Hardware was somewhere in the middle. It was in a one-story red brick building that looked like it had been built within the past twenty years. That unlikely name (it still makes me smile) was painted in neat black block letters across the entire front of the store, above two large windows. The left-hand window had a display of gasoline cans in it—bright red five-gallon cans with spouts—and in the right window there were several dozen boxes of nails, screws, latches, and hooks. A crudely lettered sign hung on the window itself: END OF MONTH SALE: SERVE YOURSELF.
It made me think of Jerry Czech and his animosity toward self-serve gas stations.

C. R. Boring was a very tall and perilously thin man, who was apparently well into his sixties; he was dressed in an ill-fitting gray suit. He'd pulled his white tie into a tight knot at his neck, so his grayish skin was pinched and folded there, and when I came in he looked up from behind the counter, at the back of the store, said "'
Scuse
me, Frank" to a man standing in front of the counter, and called to me, "Be with you in a moment, sir."

"Gutters?" I said, and looked around questioningly.

"In a moment, sir," he said again, in the same stiffly polite tone.

"Sure," I said.

"I
n a way," I told Erika later that evening, as we sat and watched the fifth network rerun of
Children of the Corn
, which bored me but seemed to absorb Erika, "I guess I was disappointed."

She glanced quickly at me, then back at the TV. "Oh?" she said, clearly not interested. "How?"

I shrugged. "I think I wanted something more . . . rustic, more bucolic—"

"Bucolic?"

"
Countryish
, pastoral—"

"And it wasn't?"

"No. It was kind of phony. I know that sounds harsh. And I guess I don't mean
phony
phony
. I don't think they're trying to trick anybody; I guess they're just being . . . people—"

Again she glanced at me; she smiled bemusedly, said, "Of course they're just being people, Jack. What'd you expect them to be—porcupines?" She cocked her head to one side, added, "Huh?" then looked at the TV again and muttered, "I don't understand this," low enough that I realized she was talking to herself.

I said, "Sure. It would have been a lot easier to deal with porcupines," paused briefly, then continued on another subject, "What do you think of this, Erika?" I cleared my throat in prelude, held my hand up as if making a solemn pronouncement. She looked at me. "From Nature's Table to Yours—Earth's-Way 100% natural and wholesome vitamin and mineral supplements."

"It's cluttered," she said.

"What's cluttered about it?" My feelings were hurt. "It won't look cluttered in print."

"The last part. It's cluttered; it's unnecessary."

"The client wants it there. Besides, it really is necessary; it's important." I realized that I was whining.

Erika shrugged. "It's your client, your work, Jack. You asked my opinion; I gave it to you."

I shrugged. "How about 'From Nature's Table to Your Table'? That's pretty good, don't you think?"

"It's simpler, yes."

"Or maybe 'Out of the earth and into your kitchen.'" I paused, thought about that one, realized that I liked it quite a lot. I repeated it slowly, with feeling, "'Out of the
earth
. . . and
into
your kitchen.' Christ, that's great; that's really great! Don't you think that's great, Erika?"

She said nothing.

I repeated, "'Out of the earth and into your kitchen.' Don't you think that's great? I mean, don't you think that means something?!"

"I'd rather not discuss it now, Jack. I'm watching this . . . movie." She nodded briskly at the TV.

"Oh? Why don't you want to discuss it? I want to discuss it."

"I'd just rather not, Jack. I've got problems of my own—"

"You mean the store?"

"Sure. I mean the store. It gets me down."

"Are you selling any records?"

She nodded vaguely. "Of course I am." She stood. "I'm going to go do some reading, Jack. Okay? This movie makes me nervous; you make me nervous." She stopped, closed her eyes, shook her head, went on, "I guess I'm just plain nervous."

"Sure," I said. "I understand," though I didn't, and she turned and left.

S
he came up from doing the laundry in the cellar the following evening and said, "Jack? The house is haunted!" The look on her face was an odd mixture of bemusement, frustration, and anger—as if she wanted to throw her hands into the air and say,
Now, what are we going to do?
"The house is haunted. And I don't like it."

I said the predictable: "Erika, I've known you how long now—six, seven years?—and I had no idea you
believed
in ghosts."

She cocked her head in confusion. "I thought everyone believed in ghosts. Don't you?"

I shrugged. "I suppose I do."

She looked annoyed. I added, my tone more serious, "Yes. I do. I believe in ghosts, Erika." I didn't stop to consider whether I was telling the truth or not. I didn't think I was. I was, at that point, trying to avoid a confrontation.

Erika said, "But you don't believe that this house is haunted, right?"

Again, I said the predictable: "Tell me why you think it's haunted and I can give you a rational answer."

"Because," she started, her tone suddenly stiff; she pointed at the floor to indicate the cellar—"there are people
talking
down there."

I nodded at the TV, which was on, volume low: "No. It was just the TV, Erika. I've heard the same sort of thing before. It sounds like there are people living in the walls, doesn't it?" I paused; she said nothing. I went on, "But there aren't any people in the walls. If there were, they wouldn't be talking, would they?"

"No," she said, coolly.

"You think my theory's full of holes, don't you?"

"Yes," she said, still coolly. She nodded at the TV. "I can hardly hear that, and I'm in the same room with it, Jack. How in the hell am I going to hear it down in the cellar?"

I shrugged again. "Weird acoustics, I don't know." She said nothing.

"Okay, then—tell me what these spooks were talking about, Erika."

"There was only one."

"Oh?"

"Yes. And I'm not sure what he was talking about. Something about the dark."

"Oh? You didn't hear every word, Erika?"

"No. Not every word. He mumbles."

"Oh. He mumbles."

"Stop that,
damnit
!"

"Stop humoring you?"

"Yes. The house is haunted, and when you care to talk about it further, I'll be in my music room." And she turned and left.

I was curious, of course. I went into the cellar, said a few stupid things—"Hey, Mr. Spook, where are you? Come out, Mr. Spook"—then went to Erika's music room and told her I'd found nothing at all in the cellar.

"Of course you didn't," she told me. "How are you going to find a ghost unless it wants to be found?"

It was a good question. I had no answer for it, so the subject was dropped.

A
week later, Erika said to me over dinner, "I passed a place called Granada today, Jack."

"Oh?" I said.

She nodded, stuck a forkful of my homemade fettuccine Alfredo into her mouth, looked appreciative. "I took a different route home. You drive the same damned route every day, and it gets pretty boring." She pointed with her fork at her plate of fettuccine Alfredo. "This is good stuff, Jack. Really." She tossed her head so her dark hair fell in back of her shoulders.