R. Foggo – Three Encounters

[Moonshot #3: Secret]
R. Foggo ☛ Three Encounters

Wednesday, lunchtime: I meet my guardian angel in a Times Square fast food place. It’s our first ever “sit-down”—I’ve been trying to make this happen for years. George 418 turns out to be a rather seedy Englishman in his mid-60s wearing an ancient, scuffed Aquascutum raincoat. Tobacco-stained teeth and fingertips. A home counties accent. In person, he appears—how to say?—rather less well-connected than he does on the phone. He orders a burger and fries. I have a beer. (Those bright fish eyes, those bushy eyebrows! I’m reminded of old dust jacket photos of Graham Greene.) After beating around the bush for a while, George offers me $500 “as a gesture of goodwill”; a tacit acknowledgement that “mistakes were made.” At first I’m too surprised to say anything: Heaven’s messenger is offering me monetary compensation—$500!—for my lousy life. “Take it or leave it, old boy.” I wave aside his offer and ask instead about reassignment. He eyes me reproachfully. What? Still harping on that? He shakes his head. “Sorry, old man. Nothing doing. I’m telling you, this new commissioner is a piece of work—” At the next table, a pair of red-haired children—ten-year-old males, twins, seemingly without adult supervision—fight furiously with spoons over a huge syrupy dessert. Something is dying at the center of that mess, so white and purple, but of course the boys don’t see it. George 418 blows his nose, looks at his watch. “Good God, is that the time? I must make tracks…” He stands up, holds out a hand. “I wish you’d reconsider. No? All right, we’ll be in touch then… And do try to keep your knob in your pants, there’s a good chap.” Sipping my Amstel Lite, I watch him leave the restaurant. He’s walking past the George M. Cohan statue when his snow-white wings unfurl, clipping an old lady who stumbles and falls. I watch her hit the concrete hard, on her knees. Pipe clenched between his teeth, George takes to the air. Suddenly, I want a cigarette. Maybe I was too proud, too hasty? The fact is, I could really use that money right now.

***

After Pu Songling

A few years ago, I was having trouble with a family of fox spirits. They had got in under the fence and taken up residence in parts of my house. I don’t need to tell you what havoc foxes can wreak. Things went missing; food, jewellery, an ink stone, the scrolls Master Chen gave me. A beautiful old vase had been smashed. One morning, a fire broke out in the east wing. My servants were frightened. Several had run away. Clearly, something had to be done.

I went down to the market place. There I saw a girl; a young girl, standing under a yellow parasol and before her on a small card table, the paraphernalia of magic. She was small and slim with long black hair and a pale oval face. I walked up to her and I bowed. I said, “I have a feeling you can help me.” And I explained to her about the foxes.

When I had finished, she said, “It’s true, sir, I do have some experience dealing with foxes. I’m prepared to help you but you should know it will cost you dearly.” And she looked me dead in the eye.

I said, “Money is no object. I’m a wealthy man, influential, a close friend of the provincial governor. When can you start your work?”

“Right away, if you like,” she said, and she smiled at me. When she smiled like that, I felt the hairs stand up on the back of my neck. Something stirred in my chest…

Some time later, after the foxes had all been driven out and things had returned to normal, I made a fearful discovery. The girl—who was now my wife—was not what she appeared to be. No, she was not at all what she appeared to be. My beautiful, my talented wife was not a human being; she was a ghost.

By the time I discovered the truth, it was too late. So great was the trouble I found myself in then—indeed, my life was in danger—that I could think back almost with nostalgia to a time when foxes had the run of my house.

I cling to this hope: if I can provoke her, she may, in anger, turn me into a bird or a bat. In which case, I will fly away, never to return.

***

For M.B.T.

Yesterday I spent part of the morning with Mr. Blake at Hercules Mansions. Mr. Blake, the engraver and poet, is an exceptional man; he understands matters pertaining to the spiritual world far better than most. I explained to him that on the spiritual plane there is a woman of great beauty who always stands with her back to me; or else, to my inner eye, she always appears to be walking away from me. At other times, no sooner do I turn my head to look in her direction than she disappears around a corner. I know the lady is conscious of my gaze but feels nothing for the lovelorn gazer. I told Mr. Blake how distressing this is; how, shellacked by her cold indifference, my soul feels itself devalued: all hopes of future happiness seem blighted.

I cannot tell if Mr. Blake feels any great sympathy for my suffering but I do admire his perspicacity. I confided in the gentleman that in my despair I had even begun to entertain the notion that there was “a devil between us.” (At present, I am listening to Pixies’ Dolittle every day; especially the songs “Hey” and “Number Thirteen Baby.” Mr. Blake is quite familiar with Pixies, as the record shops on the spiritual plane are very well stocked.) After giving the matter some thought, Mr. Blake remarked that there might indeed be a devil between the woman and me but that I should look inside myself to explain why the meddlesome fellow is abroad and making mischief.

I hastened to explain that, vis à vis the alleged devil, what I really meant was that I found myself identifying with the sexual agony of Black Francis. Such is the egoism of suffering that sometimes I almost fancied Francis and his rocking friends, Ms. Deal and the others, come swimming up the time stream—via The Time Tunnel—to reflect my despairing mood and succor me, with fine melodies and spirited ensemble playing from 1989.

“1989? A bit before my time,” remarked Mr. Blake with a wink. Not long after that the gentleman bade me good-day. Whistling up a passing cloud, he stepped aboard and was soon lost to my sight.

–

R. Foggo was born in Dublin, Ireland. He has made New York his home since 1984.

Graham Cotten – Plans

[Moonshot #3: Secret]
Graham Cotten ☛ Plans

Across the soy fields he could see the storm’s gnarled, black finger reaching down from heaven.

“Look at that thing,” he said, yelling over the wind. “I think we stayed out too long. Let’s stop in here.”

“Yeah,” the girl said. “Maybe we did.”

They slid off the four-wheeler and went for cover in an old cow barn. She walked ahead of him.

“On second thought,” he said, turning, “I might pull your dad’s four-wheeler behind the barn, chain it down to something back there.”

Then it would be out of sight from the road.

He didn’t really know why he went to the First Presbyterian Church. It seemed like the thing to do once you got to a city: to meet people, get established. And he was always looking for God.

So the Greene’s invitation in the church lobby to their farm had seemed forward, but he was new and still a little light-headed from all the introductions. Mrs. Greene smiled. She was a plump nurse.

“I’d like that,” he said. “Today?”

“Oh no,” Mr. Greene said. “We’re going down there next Saturday.”

“Ah.”

“And you’ll get to meet Sarah,” Mrs. Greene said. “The older sister. She’s fourteen.”

“She stayed home faking sick,” said the girl standing next to them.

“Oh Reece, shush.”

The girl shrugged and leaned down, lifting her dress slightly to scratch her knee.

“Next Saturday is fine.”

“Great. We’re going to smoke some chicken,” Mr. Greene said. “You ever smoked chicken?”

He shook his head.

“It’s divine.”

They gave him their phone number and left out the glass double doors. Mr. Greene opened the passenger door for his wife in the parking lot. The heat off the asphalt made their legs swim in the air.

“They’re a nice family,” a voice from behind him said. “Nice children.”

He turned. The preacher offered his hand.

“Pastor Richards.”

“John Ross. Looks like it’s just us two,” he said, glancing around at the empty foyer.

“Where two or more are gathered,” the preacher said, smiling.

Driving to work the next morning, he put the radio on scan. But he was too distracted to stop its slow rise and sudden drop through the FM. By what, he wasn’t sure; his mind drifted like an orange bobber in a brook, waiting for something to grab hold. At his bank he almost gave a mother with a child swung on her hip an extra hundred.

“Five hundred?” she said.

He looked at the splayed bills.

“I’m sorry. Four hundred,” he said, pulling one back through the slot in the glass. “I’m lucky you’re an honest woman.”

She pulled a lollipop from the basket on the counter and nodded toward her child.

“I’ll take this for her. You like grape, honey?” She looked up. “She loves these grape ones.”

By Friday it was all he could do to keep track of the time, accidentally packing up for lunch at ten fifteen, spending ten minutes in the bathroom letting the water get hot and steam the bottom of the mirror. He was a meticulous man. He felt altered, like he was occasionally striking an empty space in a keyboard that had lost a letter, the ghost of the key still on the tip of his finger. At 5:02 he was in his car, already beginning to feel the dampness of sweat on his lower back, and by seven that night he’d eaten and bathed and sat by the phone for three minutes. He thought of the phrasings he’d use. He called.

They told him where to go, to turn right after the bridge with the road sign that says Hatchet Creek, to follow a dirt path for just a ways. The house was on the left, half stone and half wood. They’d be waiting.

He noticed that Sarah looked not so much young as new. And he noticed her legs, smooth, even legs that glowed with summer’s first sunkiss and stretched like twin strands of warm molasses. She wore a black tennis skirt high off the knee.

“I was sick last Sunday,” she said.

“She was burning up,” Mrs. Greene said.

“Let me show you around the property just a bit,” Mr. Greene said.

They walked to the edge of the yard and onto a trail, where Mr. Greene pointed at things, explaining them.

“Used to be an old grist mill,” he said. It was a stone structure mostly ripped apart; the fist of time had punched straight through its walls and raked its guts down into the ravine. “I think it’s War era.”

“Quite a piece,” John said. “You ever poke around inside it?”

“Oh, no.”

He showed John a pit he thought might have been a stone mine at one point, and where they’d cleared the trees two years ago and sold the lumber to a paper company. They walked into a deer field, green with new pine needles, and to a salt lick and a well whose water tasted of the faint iron sting of blood.

Back at the house Mr. Greene tended to the chicken in the smoker. They stood on the porch. John watched him, nodding and saying, yes, yes, when Mr. Greene paused in his explanation of the technique.

“Don’t bore him to death,” Sarah said, standing in the doorway.

“Not many people smoke chicken,” Mr. Greene said.

“I’m not bored,” he said.

“What do you do?” she asked.

“John’s a banker,” Mr. Greene said.

John raised his finger. “I count other people’s money.”

“How much money do you need to start?” she said. “I have seventy-eight dollars.”

“Are you wanting to put your money in his bank?” Mr. Greene asked.

“I don’t know.”

“That might be a responsible thing,” Mr. Greene said. “To learn how to use a bank.”

“You could start with your seventy-eight dollars,” John said. “And we have free checking.”

“We’ll talk about all that later,” Mr. Greene said. “It’s Saturday. And it’s time to eat.”

He pulled the two chickens from the smoker and cut into their white breasts with a long knife. It smelled sweet in the air.

“Mom,” Sarah said in the door. “Ready.”

They ate and talked, licking their fingers.

“It’s good,” he said.

After lunch they all went to the pond to fish with crickets. Reece caught them in the tall grass lining the water and held them pinched between her fingers as she baited the hooks.

“You’re a little Tom Sawyer,” he said, watching her cup the crickets under her palm and pick them up.

“I have two girls that know their way around a fishing pole,” Mr. Greene said.

“They do ballet,” Mrs. Greene said. “So they’ll stay girls.”

“I’m going to quit next year,” Sarah said.

They reeled in little finger bass and flat, sunny brim. He didn’t like to touch the fish. He imagined their slimed bodies had a nuclear quality, covered in toxic oozing waste. Reece took them off the hook for him.

“You catch more when it’s overcast like this,” Reece said. She threaded another cricket on his hook. “If it rains, even better.”

“Are you looking for a church home?” Mr. Greene said.

“I liked Pastor…” he waited for the name.

“Richards,” Mrs. Greene said. “Isn’t he wonderful?”

“Richards. I used to go to a Methodist church in Montgomery.”

“I think you’ll grow to love First Pres,” Mr. Greene said. “And they have a good young singles group.”

He nodded, raising his arm and casting.

“I know,” Mrs. Greene said. “Why don’t you girls take him out on the four-wheeler?”

“Perfect,” he said. He handed his pole to Mrs. Greene.

The girls lay their poles on the bank and started up the sloped yard, first walking and then running.

“I keep the four-wheeler in a metal shed over there.” Mr. Greene held up a brass key from a ring and shook it, chiming the other keys together. He smiled, handing it over to John.

He thought of some verse from grade school, about the keys and the binding and loosing of heaven. But he didn’t remember those things any more or think they were real.

At first it was the three of them on the seat. Reece sat driver in the front, wearing a pink Bell helmet speckled with flowers and ponies. Sarah sat in the middle and held her sister’s waist. John had to scoot up close to Sarah to stay on the vinyl padding in the rear.

“You can hold on to the rails,” she told him.

He gripped the iron grid behind him and they jolted into gear, sending the girls back into his chest like dominos. He held on tighter. He felt the inseams of his jeans warm from the heat of the engine underneath.  Sarah’s loose hair floated against his neck in wind whips.

They took a road through the core of the property, a main artery with capillaries of footpaths and deer trails and thin rabbit runs breaking off into the woods. There must be a million ways to go, he thought. Every time Reece kicked the gear peg to shift, Sarah bumped back into him. She said sorry the first couple of times. Then she just let it happen.

Reece didn’t drive fast enough for Sarah. She kept mashing her sister’s thumb against the accelerator and shouting “Come on.” John laughed into her neck, holding tighter to the railing. After a while of their back and forth, Reece turned around.

“I’m going back. You can drive however fast you want.”

“Fine,” Sarah said.

The clouds were turning darker from their milkish grey. Birds were nested. When they got back to the house Reece jumped off and left the motor going.

“I hope it rains on you, then you can’t go fast.”

Sarah pulled on the handlebars and slid up.

“Can I drive?” John asked.

“Sure.”

They changed spots. He thumbed the gas and then felt her hands grasp his shoulders. Small hands, he thought.

“Go fast,” she said, and squeezed her legs.

He did. They zipped down the path they’d taken before, leaning on the turns, letting the engine whine and fit. They passed red clay gullies and trees bent over. She directed him, straining up and against him to speak into his ear. Her breath was hot child’s breath, sweet with the chicken. He tried to imagine how close they were, her legs cupping his, her crotch at the small of his back when she leaned up. He felt patters of rain on his arms at some point but didn’t mention it and she never said anything either.

He asked himself what he was doing but no answer came and he didn’t want an answer. Someone else asked. Some part of him that knew the answer and wanted to see if he would say it. He saw an old hunting camp made from sheets of aluminum rested against each other, drooping in the middle.

“What’s that?” he asked.

“Stop.”

He pulled in the small clearing and turned the engine off.

“I’ll show you,” she said.

They walked through weeds laced with thorned webbing and chiggers. She lifted her feet high at each step like a show horse. Beer cans lay strewn on the ground, sunwashed and rusted. They must be the people’s who owned it before, he thought. Or poachers.

“Me and my sister went back in here one night and checked it out. Spooky. They used to use it to hunt.”

“You two should camp here one time.”

She laughed. “It’s too scary!”

To get through the door they had to climb over fallen slabs of plywood spray painted green and black.

“Watch out for nails,” she said.

He saw an iron kettle and a busted light fixture overhead. A pine bartop ran across the length. The smell of stale sawdust lifted as their steps disturbed the ground.

“I wonder what went on in here,” he said. He fingered the bar.

The aluminum above them began to mumble. He looked out the door and saw the dirt of the road jumping with rain.

“Can we ride in this?” he asked.

“I have before.”

“Does it hurt?”

“When you go real fast. Cause the rain hits your face and it feels like little rocks.”

“Pebbles.”

“I guess.”

“Let’s go,” he said.

It was lighter outside the shed but not much so, clouds heavy with water, rolling over each other like drunk wrestlers. The air flashed.

“Was that lightning?” she said.

“Just heat lightning.”

“It looked real.”

“Heat lightning is real.”

It only got worse as they backtracked, the wind shushing their ears and driving pellets of rain in their faces and arms. He noticed the tornado first. Its tipping vortex disappeared in the treetops, causing some casual and unseen destruction. When he was a child, a tornado had ripped through their county and torn the tops off of all the trailers, leaving clothes and furniture and even people scattered around like the devil’s confetti. Is it God or the devil that causes the weather, he asked, or does God hold the sun and the devil the water and wind? His mother wouldn’t answer him. They lay together in the bathtub chalked with calcium and covered by a twin mattress. She said be still, be still, over and over. After it passed they walked around like sleepy tourists in an imaginary world, letting their hands wander the surfaces of cars or sinks or split trees.

Their shirts were wet against each other as she held onto him, stretching and thinning the fabric until he felt like he could trace in his mind the contours of her chest on his back, the ductile bow of her ribs. They approached a soy field and the rain let up.

“Don’t be afraid,” he said.

He could feel that she was.

They drove in silence past the khaki rows. At the barn, he didn’t bother chaining down the four-wheeler behind the building. It was dark inside but the pipes spanning above the stalls shone like crushed lead on dark paper.

This is a blueprint I made, he thought. I have made it before. Or God or the devil made it or God made it in the devil who passed it to me.  It has been made over and over again and I have drawn it and cannot stop drawing it.

They were scared but for different reasons, and neither reason mattered much. What was happening was happening and it, for one, was real. As real as fear ever was.

–

Graham Cotten was born in Mississippi and raised in Birmingham, Alabama. His fiction has appeared in Whitefish Review, Evergreen Review, NPR.org and staccatofiction.com. His story was named a runner up in the 2009 Playboy College Fiction Contest. He is in law school.