Upstate New York
April - May 2008
The ring tone is familiar but completely unexpected. I had set up Karen’s number to play Debussy’s Reverie months ago, mostly for corny, sentimental reasons. It was “our song” when we were dating, which was so long ago it seems like someone else’s life instead of my own. I answer even though using a cell phone while driving is illegal in New York State.
“Karen, hi.” During the ensuing dead air, I try to remember last time Karen—the real Karen that is—and I talked. It was last year, August I think, at the YMCA. Her and her significant other were working out. We made some innocuous small talk and I had a question for Mark about helicopters (he was a former Coast Guard pilot)—some scene in Chasing the Meridian.
“How are you?” I read nothing in her voice.
“Doing great. You?”
“I’m okay. Busy. Are you in town?”
“Well at the moment I’m driving around downtown Rochester.”
“Rochester?”
“Yeah, I’m doing a radio interview with Brother Wease this morning.” More dead air. She has no idea what I’m talking about. “He’s a local celebrity. I’m on tour pitching my books.” I try to make it sound much more important than it actually is.
“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”
“Really?”
“When are you back?”
“Next week. I have a book signing at Barnes & Nobel tomorrow. Then down to Trumansburg to shmooze the owner of the West Wind…” A slight pause, will she remember we stayed there in ’93? If so, she doesn’t give it away. “…and drop off copies of the book.” The climax of Kiara’s Gambit takes place at the West Wind, a location I had picked mostly for the same reasons I had picked Reverie as Karen’s ring tone—corny, sentimental ones.
“Could we meet for lunch that week?”
“Sure. It’s been a while, hasn’t it. How about Monday?”
Another short delay. “We’re going out of town this weekend for a few days. Can you do Friday?”
The dreaded “we” word, and over a weekend. Still, she wants to talk about the book.
“That works. Hey, is everything okay?”
Her answer is immediate and upbeat. “Yeah, everything’s fine. Can you meet me down here?” She works in Largo or St. Pete someplace. I forget where.
“Sure. Where?”
“There’s a Panera Bread close by. I’ll email the address.”
“Cool. So I’ll see you next week. Time?”
“Can you come around 11:30?”
“Not a problem. See you then.” I leave a subtle invitation for small talk, even as I pull into the parking lot of WCMF, but she must be really busy.
“Okay. Bye.”
“Later, Karen.”
We disconnect, and I walk into the studio under a giddy cloud that repeats, she wants to talk about my book.
Last time I was in a radio station was 1974 as college DJ so I have no idea what expect. I picture a cramped room with boom microphones over head, big headphones, some guy in a separate, soundproof booth making funny signs with his hands, turntables, Kiss posters, South Park action figures, and of course the man himself, the gravely-voiced star of “Radio Free Wease,” Brother Wease.
None of that imagery even comes close to the real thing. An intern in his early twenties leads me through the office to the broadcast studio like a hospital orderly wheeling a patient off to the operating room; just another patient. When I finally get introduced to Wease, I’m in some sort of mental fog. The man actually defines the word “cool” even though he’s old enough to encapsulate “groovy” as well.
He and Sally, another member of the crew, give me a three-minute prep. I have fifteen minutes of air time. There’s an intro, some questions, and then he’ll take some calls (I just hope there are some). Sally snaps a pair of headphones into place, and we’re off.
“We have author Don Bacon in the studio this morning. In case you don’t know the name, you soon will. A couple months ago, Don asked me to review his novel, Chasing the Meridian, which takes place mostly in the Rochester area. I even make a cameo appearance, right?”
The question takes me off guard. I barely manage to fumble the words, “That’s right, Wease…” Crap, am I supposed to call him Wease or Mr. Wease?
“Tell me the truth dude, you did that so I’d review the book.”
“I wanted to give it some local color and you’re about the most colorful guy around.” He rolls his eyes, fully aware that I’m blowing smoke up his ass.
“So why pick Rochester. You’re a local boy, right?”
“I grew up in nearby Newark…”
“Population 25.”
“Right. I graduated St. John Fisher in 1975. Lived in Webster until ’95 when I moved to Florida. My two boys still live in the area.”
“And an ex- I believe?”
“That would be Nancy.”
“I have a couple of those myself. Ex’s, not Nancy’s. But that’s another story. So Don, the title, Chasing the Meridian. Where does that come from? I read the book, and I loved it. It’s got action, some hot sex, a couple of creepy bad guys, good cliffhanger at the end, but I don’t get the title.”
Now, how to explain this without sounding like a maroon. “Chasing the Meridian is the title of the fictional book-within-the-book, written by a beatnik named Dan Maguire.”
“And that’s the book that has all the secrets about this alien race that has adopted humans as their children?”
“That’s right. That, and how to protect and help the main character, Kiara.”
“Dude, there’s a lot of stuff going on there.”
“Well I wanted to write something thoughtful as well as entertaining.”
“I thought it was. And you have a new book, right?”
“A collection of short stories called Follow My Madness.”
Since we only have fifteen minutes, he keeps the chatter to a minimum and then goes to the phones. It’s a surprise, to me anyway, that there are actually callers. Someone in another room apparently screens the calls. The first name and location of the caller pops up on a display screen.
“Susan from Irondequoit. You have a question for Don?”
“Yes, hi Don.”
“Hello Susan, thanks for calling.”
“I loved Chasing.”
“Thank you.”
“I just got the short story collection and I was wondering, how much of it is real?”
Wease interrupts, “What do you mean real?”
“I mean, the characters. Are they real people? It all seems very personal.”
“Good question, Susan. Most of the characters were inspired, one way or another, by real people in my life.”
“Like Karen?”
I wasn’t expecting a sucker punch. The words crawl out, “Yeah, like Karen.”
“So she was really your girlfriend?”
Christ, please stop. “A long time ago, Susan.” I make slashing motion across my throat that Wease ignores. This is exactly the kind of stuff he wants.
He says, “So there’s a real Karen behind the Karen in the story. You dog. She know you wrote about her?”
Susan chimes in, “I was wondering the same thing.”
The real answer is too long and too involved so I try to squeak by with, “Well, yes and no.”
“Now we’re getting somewhere.” Wease adjusts his headphones with a sadistic sort of glee. “Care to elaborate on that?”
Doesn’t seem to be a way to weasel out of this (as it were). “When we were dating, and that was fifteen years ago, I wrote a few stories about us and shared those with her.”
“Very romantic. That’s the yes part. And the no?”
“I ah, well, let’s just say I enlarged the story some.”
“Boy, I’ll say. Dude, that story, War—that’s some mighty twisted stuff going on there. Susan, thanks for the call. Molly from Penfield. Go ahead, darling.”
“Hello Don?”
“Hi, Molly.”
“Don, this is Molly.”
I look over at Wease. He sprouts a wide smile, some would call it a shit-eating grin. I don’t know what else to say, so I repeat myself.
“Yeah. Molly. Hi.”
“You don’t understand. This is Molly, the real Molly. The one your character is apparently based on. Remember me?”
“Molly, of course. That was a long time ago. How are you?”
“How am I? Never mind that. Where the [bleep] do you [bleep]ing get off writing about me?
Wease jumps up, “Woah! Hold the phone there. This is a family show.” The 10-second delay is more than enough time to inserts bleeps as needed.
Molly continues her rant, “You don’t [bleep]ing know me. All that [bleep] about suicide, and, and, and killing that guy in the bar… Where did you [bleep]ing get that [bleep] from? What’s wrong with you?”
“It’s not you. The character is fictional…”
“Right. And does Don know you changed his name to Peter when you wrote about us? Does he?” Her boyfriend at the time. I had to change the name—too many Dons.
Wease cuts off the caller. “Holy crap! Man, there’s more to those stories you thought. Am I right?”
It all makes for good radio, at least for Wease. As I drive to the bookstore to scope out the next gig, I wonder, what next? Do I need a lawyer?
By 6:00 PM the next day, I’m sitting at an oblong table in the center of the Barnes and Nobel bookstore on Jefferson Ave, not far from RIT. There’s a pile of books to my left, a poster of yours truly on my right. Behind me, looking over my shoulder, are two oversized cardboard stand-ups of my book covers—Chasing the Meridian, and Follow My Madness. They both have a fractal theme, something I thought pretty clever at the time, except most people have no idea what a fractal is. So maybe weaving fractals into the Chasing story line wasn’t such a hot idea after all.
This is the part I had dreaded the most—waiting for prospective readers. What if no one gives a rat’s ass? I can see them now, wandering by me at my lonely outpost thinking, “Who the hell is that?” and then quickly turning the corner before I notice.
It turns out that Wease’s pitch (or maybe it was Molly’s call) had some affect. By ten after there’s a line of twenty or more (women mostly), clutching copies of one book or another, waiting patiently. A Barnes & Nobel associate gives a two minute intro and we’re off.
We run into overtime and by 7:30 one last person approaches the desk and sets down a copy of each book without saying a word. Without even looking, I flip Chasing open to the title page and ask in a bouncy voice, “And who do I address this to?” I had used about a hundred variations on that question and they all sounded artificial, as if I were asking directions to the men’s room in a foreign language using one of those phrase books.
“Wendy.”
“Okay Wendy,” I look up, and sure enough, there’s Wendy. The real Wendy. I recognize her instantly even though it’s been at least a dozen years since we’ve seen each other. And she’s exactly as I remember her—prettier maybe—except the smile is gone. The shock of seeing her paralyses me for an instant, and I even forget what I’m supposed to do next.
She reminds me. “Well?”
“Wendy. Hi! Thanks for coming. How did you…”
“I listen to CMF.”
The pen stalls in my hand. I have no idea what to say. Wendy watches me squirm. Although the expression on her face gives nothing away, I imagine she’s quite enjoying herself. She finally gives me a gentle nudge in a voice just loud enough to attract attention. “How about this, to my good friend Wendy. Isn’t that how they all start? To my good friend fill-in-the-blanks?” I get as far as writing “To my good” before I stop, as if someone shot my hand with a nail gun.
She turns up the volume a notch. “You can’t write it, can you.”
“Wendy, I don’t understand.”
“No and that’s just the problem, isn’t it. Christ, is that a quote? I sure hope not, you’re one of the last people on earth I’d quote, and definitely the last one I’d marry.”
“That. Well, it was only a story.”
She leans over the desk and yells in my face. “Story! Who the hell you think you are putting me in a goddamn story? Jesus Christ, Don, how could you do that?”
“But, you read them. Some of them anyway, remember?”
“Of course I remember, but that was a long time ago and I didn’t expect you put them in a fucking book for the whole world to see. This is my life we’re talking about here.”
“Look, I’ll change the name if that’s what you’re worried about.”
Wrong thing to say, but too later. She jerks back, her face turns to stone. I wince automatically, bracing myself for what will come next. Wendy looks away, clenches her fists and stares at the ground. Her voice becomes soft and sad, and not for herself.
“No, I’m not going to slap you across the face. That’s what you’re expecting, right? Something dramatic. Like in your stories.” She looks at me; her eyes are tired and red. “That’s all I ever was to you—a character in a story. That’s what hurts the most.”
She turns and walks away, leaving both books on the table.
“Wendy,” I call out, “you forgot your books.”
“Keep ’em,” she says without looking back.
Last stop on the tour is The West Wind for a weekend of rest, recuperation, and more marketing. My friend Vickie joins me to help out. Nothing romantic—yet. We dated in high school and reconnected through a famous web site. She had helped Scott and I edit the final draft of Chasing. We get there early Saturday morning and the first thing she does is study the door matt.
She gasps. “I don’t believe it!” I look down and yes, someone had removed the “r” in “Welcome Friends.”
“I thought you made that up,” she says with a bright smile.
“I thought I did, too.”
“Let’s give this a try.” Vickie presses the doorbell. From inside the house the first five notes of Nights in White Satin ring out in digital clarity. She bursts out laughing. “No freakin’ way!”
A moment later the door flies open and standing there is a slender, young woman who looks to be in her early thirties. She’s dressed casually in jeans and loose-fitting sweater. Her eyes sparkle behind thick glasses with skinny black rims. She has light-brown hair circling her face like a living picture frame, and the delicate features of a greeting card angel.
“Donald and Vickie, am I right?” She hugs us both as if we were lost kin. “Come on in.” She leads us through a modern kitchen into a sitting room. I don’t remember the kitchen, but the sitting room looks familiar. “My name is Gwenn,” she says with a hint of giggle. Vickie and I sit on the couch, Gwenn sits across from us in a rocking chair.
“Gwenn?” I ask.
She nods, “Quite a coincidence, isn’t it? Me—the Gwenn in your book and stories. Different spelling, but we are so glad to have you here. We don’t get many celebrity guests.”
“I’m hardly a celebrity.”
Vickie nudges me, “Don’t be shy.” She says to our host, “He is quite famous. Quite famous.” They both have a nice laugh.
“Good one. Gwenn, the doormat and the doorbell. Did you…?”
“I thought it would be a nice touch for the party tonight.”
“Party?”
“Just a small group of friends. After we got your email about using the West Wind in your stories and novel, my mom and I thought it would be good publicity. Carol, my mom, she actually runs the place. I’m in real estate, but I help out sometimes. You have copies of your books? To leave with us?”
“I brought about ten of each and a poster of course.”
“Of course! Well, let’s get you two settled and you’ll have the rest of the day to unwind.”
Gwenn gives us a little tour of the place, ending at our room, conveniently named Room Two. It has a balcony, a queen-sized bed and a futon. I make the noble gesture with, “I’ll take the futon.”
Vickie nods absently. “So, is this where you stayed?” She’s read Breakfast, so I know exactly what she’s talking about.
I resist an overwhelming urge to be dramatic; years of practice. “To be honest, I really don’t remember. That was a long time ago.”
I am such a good liar. Every detail of that weekend popped back into my head the instant I entered the room. I can’t look at the bed, not yet. I turn away, walk over to the window, draw the blinds and pretend to look out the window.
“Nice view from up here.”
Vickie walks to my side and lays a comforting hand on my shoulder. “Look, it’s okay. Come on, let’s go outside and look around.”
We walk through the kitchen to the back patio and stand there a moment taking in the scenery. Early spring and the buds are starting to appear on the trees, but it’s not the foliage we’re interested in.
“You see it?” Vickie asks.
“Not yet. Should be somewhere over there.”
“There it is. Come on!”
She grabs my hand and together we scamper across the yard to a path leading into the woods. I stop at the edge. “I don’t know, Vickie.”
“You’re demons are down that path,” she says, a bit too seriously I think.
“And maybe a wide beach on the shore of some ocean?”
“Only one way to find out.”
Slow going as the terrain is rough and the trail narrow. We hike about a half a mile single file through Taughannock Falls State Park until reaching the overlook on Gorge Road. Somewhere along the way the sky had turned dark, and we climb the last few hundred yards in a cold drizzle. We take shelter under a large park information sign, flapping our arms and blowing into our hands to try and keep warm.
I try to be upbeat. “How do you misplace an entire ocean?”
Shivering, Vickie wraps her arms around me. “It was a nice story.”
“That’s pretty much all it was—a story.”
She looks up at me. “Why did you want to come here? You must have known it would be hard for you.”
“I didn’t think it would be. Vickie, I’m such a dope sometimes. Here I am, a beautiful woman by my side, and all I can do is pout. What the hell’s wrong with me anyway?”
“You’re guilty of being human.” I don’t have an answer to that. She interrupts my train of thought. “You can cherish the memories, but you need to bury the past.” I nod in tacit agreement. “No, really. Figuratively and literally.”
“Literally?”
“I can help. I’ve been through two divorces and know all about it. Come on, let’s get back.”
We decide to hike back along the park trail to Taughannock Boulevard and then walk along the road back to the West Wind. The light mist is persistent, the cold seeps into our bones and neither one of us says a word until reaching the patio of the West Wind, tired and wet. We walk through a dark kitchen to the guest sitting room. I half expect to see Wendy waiting there with suitcases in hand. Instead we find Gwenn sitting in the same rocking chair, snuggled up close to the fireplace, reading. The flickering flames send shadow demons racing around the walls. We park on opposite sides of a loveseat.
Gwenn sets down her book and says, “Have a nice hike? Too bad about the weather, but it’s supposed to clear up for tonight’s party.”
That evening, before the guests arrive, we borrow a shovel and in the tepid light of a full moon we locate the hiking path. We find a clearing about twenty yards from the trailhead and I dig a hole roughly a foot across and two feet deep. When done, I toss the shovel aside and stand there looking into the hole.
Vickie pokes me in the side. “The past won’t bury itself.”
“Cute. Well then, here goes.” I reach into my pocket and pull out a folded copy of Breakfast I had torn out of my own copy of the book. “This is really corny.”
“Go on,” Vickie urges. I toss the paper into the hole and quickly cover it up. “There, was that so hard?”
“Not at all.” She has no idea.
Back home, the next week races by in a blur. If I hadn’t gotten Karen’s email reminder on Thursday, I’d have forgotten all about our lunch date the next day. The drive is cross-town from Tampa to Feather Sound in St. Pete. I leave work late, in a rush, forget the directions, and by the time I pull into the Panera Bread parking lot it’s 11:45. No sign of Karen yet, so I stand around outside looking hopeful, holding a copy of Follow My Madness and a hard-back edition of Chasing the Meridian . It’s nearly noon by the time she shows up. She greets me with a small smile and a handshake which derails my initial plan of a friendly hug.
“Sorry, I got hung up in a meeting.”
“No problem.” A little fib. “Let’s go on inside.”
We wait in line for a table another ten minutes or so, making work-related small talk. Karen had actually worked for me at one time, not the most clever idea on my part, but since then her career had progressed. Now, as a director for a medical software company, she seems preoccupied.
Once seated, a waiter hands us a pair of menus. Karen interrupts him before he can rattle off the specials of the day.
“Just a coffee for me.” She looks at me and says with the serious half-smile, “Sorry, but I need to get back.”
“Make that two,” I tell the waiter. “No problem.” Another little fib and I realize I’m repeating myself. I set the two books on the table. Karen glances at them, and then at me.
“Finally done,” she says.
“I started Chasing from scratch a couple years ago.” It sounds like an apology. “The stories, well, you know, I’ve been working on those for a while.”
Our waiter arrives with two coffees. He asks if there’s anything else, and then leaves the check after Karen shakes her head. She immediately reaches over and picks up the bill. That’s when I notice the diamond ring. As Karen fishes out a credit card, the waiter returns with a three-foot long sword that he plunges into the center of my back. The blade exits out my chest, just below the sternum. Karen quietly pushes the bill back in the waiter’s direction, ignoring the steady stream of blood dripping onto the table from the tip of the sword.
“Fifteen years?”
“Maybe longer. Some of those date back to the late eighties. But I’m done, and now I’m doing a little promotional tour.” She glances at her wrist watch with a frown and cranes her neck searching for our waiter.
“That’s what you said.”
“This is funny. I was working on them while I was in Wales, remember? We were on the phone. You said, ‘I’ll go on tour with you.’ Remember that?”
“Not really,” she says. The waiter drops by with her credit card and another sword. As Karen signs the bill he runs the sword through my lower neck. It must pierce a major artery or vein as the blood shoots in hot spurts to a neighboring table.
“Funny how things work out I guess.” Karen nods. “So, you wanted to talk about something, right? Did you read the novel?”
“I read the sample chapters and stories on your web site.”
“You know about my site?”
“You sent it to me. Don’t you remember?”
“Well I wasn’t sure, so I brought copies of both.” I nudge the books in her direction. She doesn’t look at them.
“Mark read them, too. He wasn’t happy.”
“Really? I’m sorry, why?”
“What kind of question is that?” Her voice cuts into the lunchtime chatter. “Why do you think?”
“I don’t know. I mean—they’re just stories. Right? Fiction.”
“You wrote about us, graphically! And used my name, and Tom, and Ron, and Wendy and Jean, and even my hometown. He’s ready to strangle you. It took days to calm him down.”
“Karen look, I apologize. It never occurred to me—I mean, you read Breakfast years ago. There’s no surprise.”
“Not for me.”
“But, doesn’t that mean anything to you?”
She answers quietly, without looking at me. “Maybe it did, a long time ago. But that’s not the point.” She pauses, collects her purse and stands up. “You need to get rid of anything that might connect me with your books. I don’t want to make any trouble for you, I’m content now and don’t need the drama, but I can and I will if I need to.”
I wait painfully long to reply. “I can make the changes. No problem. I’ve already distributed a bunch of copies. I guess I could get those back. All I can say is, I’m really sorry.”
Her cell phone goes off. The ring tone is Unchained Melody, so I can pretty much guess who the caller is. She glances at me with an embarrassed half-smile before she answers. “Hello.” Goddamn it, I recognize that lilting voice, the come-hither way she says “hello.” The waiter must recognize it as well. He approaches our table holding a large cleaver. Karen turns away, trying to be discrete while she talks I guess. “We’re at Panera Bread… Yes… I will…” a longer pause. She looks up for a moment and then whispers loud enough for the waiter and myself to hear. “Of course I do… Okay… Love you too. Bye.” The waiter shakes his head and looks at the cleaver one more time before burying it in my skull.
“Anything else ma’am?” he asks Karen.
“No thanks.” He picks up the signed copy of the bill and leaves with a curt thank-you. “Sorry,” she says to me.
Funny she doesn’t notice the cleaver sticking out of the top of my head. “No problem. Was that Mark?”
“Of course it was. I need to go, but just for the record, you really did break up with me first.” There’s an angry edge to her voice. “You know that, so why did you make me the bad guy?”
“Karen they’re only stories.”
“You expect me to believe that? You forget I’m a real person with real feelings, not an excuse for your shortcomings or the means for your personal catharsis.”
“Okay, okay. I’ll change it around.” She just stares at me, and I have no idea whatsoever what’s going on inside her head. Hey, maybe that’s the problem.
“It doesn’t matter. Look, there’s one more thing. I’m not trying to be mean, but I don’t know any nice way to say this, so I’ll just say it. You need to stay away from me. Don’t call, don’t email. I’m married now and I don’t want any baggage from my past to interfere. I need to get back to work.”
She turns and hurries away leaving me sitting there with a couple of signed books, a cleaver in my head, a spear and a pair of swords sticking out of my body. I flip Chasing open to the title page and read the dedication I had written that morning:
To my dear friend Karen—thanks for the love and inspiration. I wrote this for you. Don.
The same waiter stops by my table. No sword this time, but he reaches down, thrusts his hand into my chest, and pulls out my heart. He holds it for a moment so I can get a better look, and then plops it unceremoniously onto the open book, obliterating the dedication. He stands there with a smug grin on his face, no doubt waiting for me to say something poignant and profound.
“That’s what I get for chasing ghosts,” I tell him.
A week later I make a quick trip up to Rochester to pick up all the books I’d left behind. The West Wind is disappointed, but Gwenn accepts my lame explanation—so lame I can’t recall it now. Before I leave I take a short hike down the path behind the inn until I find where I had buried Breakfast. I dig down with my hands. One foot, two foot, three foot deep, but find nothing.
|