The Sloan Men: Short Story

ChiZine Publications

“The Sloan Men” © 2012 by David Nickle
All rights reserved.

Published by ChiZine Publications

This short story was originally published in
Monstrous Affections
by David Nickle, first published in print form in 2009, and in an ePub edition in 2009, by ChiZine Publications.

Original ePub edition (in
Monstrous Affections
) October 2009 ISBN: 9781926851792.

This ePub edition November 2012 ISBN: 978-1-77148-059-8.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

CHIZINE PUBLICATIONS
Toronto, Canada
www.chizinepub.com
[email protected]

Mrs. Sloan had only three fingers on her left hand, but when she drummed them against the countertop, the tiny polished bones at the end of the fourth and fifth stumps clattered like fingernails. If Judith hadn’t been looking, she wouldn’t have noticed anything strange about Mrs. Sloan’s hand.

“Tell me how you met Herman,” said Mrs. Sloan. She turned away from Judith as she spoke, to look out the kitchen window where Herman and his father were getting into Mr. Sloan’s black pickup truck. Seeing Herman and Mr. Sloan together was a welcome distraction for Judith. She was afraid Herman’s stepmother would catch her staring at the hand. Judith didn’t know how she would explain that with any grace:
Things are off to a bad enough start as it is
.

Outside, Herman wiped his sleeve across his pale, hairless scalp and, seeing Judith watching from the window, turned the gesture into an exaggerated wave. He grinned wetly through the late afternoon sun. Judith felt a little grin of her own growing and waved back, fingers waggling an infantile bye-bye.
Hurry home
, she mouthed through the glass. Herman stared back blandly, not understanding.

“Did you meet him at school?”

Judith flinched. The drumming had stopped, and when she looked, Mrs. Sloan was leaning against the counter with her mutilated hand hidden in the crook of crossed arms. Judith hadn’t even seen the woman move.

“No,” Judith finally answered. “Herman doesn’t go to school. Neither do I.”

Mrs. Sloan smiled. She had obviously been a beautiful woman in her youth — in most ways she still was. Mrs. Sloan’s hair was auburn and it played over her eyes mysteriously, like a movie star’s. She had cheekbones that Judith’s ex-boss Talia would have called sculpted, and the only signs of her age were the tiny crow’s feet at her eyes and harsh little lines at the corners of her mouth.

“I didn’t mean to imply anything,” said Mrs. Sloan. “Sometimes he goes to school, sometimes museums, sometimes just shopping plazas. That’s Herman.”

Judith expected Mrs. Sloan’s smile to turn into a laugh, underscoring the low mockery she had directed towards Herman since he and Judith had arrived that morning. But the woman kept quiet, and the smile dissolved over her straight white teeth. She regarded Judith thoughtfully.

“I’d thought it might be school because you don’t seem that old,” said Mrs. Sloan. “Of course I don’t usually have an opportunity to meet Herman’s lady friends, so I suppose I really can’t say.”

“I met Herman on a tour. I was on vacation in Portugal, I went there with a girl I used to work with, and when we were in Lisbon — ”

“ — Herman appeared on the same tour as you. Did your girlfriend join you on that outing, or were you alone?”

“Stacey got food poisoning.”
As I was about to say
. “It was a rotten day, humid and muggy.” Judith wanted to tell the story the way she’d told it to her own family and friends, countless times. It had its own rhythm; her fateful meeting with Herman Sloan in the roped-off scriptorium of the monastery outside Lisbon, dinner that night in a vast, empty restaurant deserted in the off-season. In the face of Mrs. Sloan, though, the rhythm of that telling was somehow lost. Judith told it as best she could.

“So we kept in touch,” she finished lamely.

Mrs. Sloan nodded slowly and didn’t say anything for a moment. Try as she might, Judith couldn’t read the woman, and she had always prided herself on being able to see through most people at least half way. That she couldn’t see into this person at all was particularly irksome, because of who she was — a potential
in-law
, for God’s sake. Judith’s mother had advised her, “Look at the parents if you want to see what kind of man the love of your life will be in thirty years. See if you can love them with all their faults, all their habits. Because that’s how things’ll be . . .”

Judith realized again that she wanted very much for things to be just fine with Herman thirty years down the line. But if this afternoon were any indication . . .

Herman had been uneasy about the two of them going to Fenlan to meet his parents at all. But, as Judith explained, it was a necessary step. She knew it, even if Herman didn’t — as soon as they turned off the highway he shut his eyes and wouldn’t open them until Judith pulled into the driveway.

Mr. Sloan met them and Herman seemed to relax then, opening his eyes and blinking in the sunlight. Judith relaxed too, seeing the two of them together. They were definitely father and son, sharing features and mannerisms like images in a mirror. Mr. Sloan took Judith up in a big, damp hug the moment she stepped out of the car. The gesture surprised her at first and she tried to pull away, but Mr. Sloan’s unstoppable grin had finally put her at ease.

“You
are
very lovely,” said Mrs. Sloan finally. “That’s to be expected, though. Tell me what you do for a living. Are you still working now that you’ve met Herman?”

Judith wanted to snap something clever at the presumption, but she stopped herself. “I’m working. Not at the same job, but in another salon. I do people’s hair, and I’m learning manicure.”

Mrs. Sloan seemed surprised. “Really? I’m impressed.”

Now Judith was sure Mrs. Sloan was making fun, and a sluice of anger passed too close to the surface. “I work hard,” she said hotly. “It may not seem — ”

Mrs. Sloan silenced her with shushing motions. “Don’t take it the wrong way,” she said. “It’s only that when I met Herman’s father, I think I stopped working the very next day.”

“Those must have been different times.”

“They weren’t
that
different.” Mrs. Sloan’s smile was narrow and ugly. “Perhaps Herman’s father just needed different things.”

“Well, I’m still working.”

“So you say.” Mrs. Sloan got up from the kitchen stool. “Come to the living room, dear. I’ve something to show you.”

The shift in tone was too sudden, and it took Judith a second to realize she’d even been bidden. Mrs. Sloan half-turned at the kitchen door, and beckoned with her five-fingered hand.

“Judith,” she said, “you’ve come this far already. You might as well finish the journey.”

The living room was distastefully bare. The walls needed paint and there was a large brown stain on the carpet that Mrs. Sloan hadn’t even bothered to cover up. She sat down on the sofa and Judith joined her.

“I wanted you to see the family album. I think — ” Mrs. Sloan reached under the coffee table and lifted out a heavy black-bound volume “ — I don’t know, but I hope . . . you’ll find this interesting.”

Mrs. Sloan’s face lost some of its hardness as she spoke. She finished with a faltering smile.

“I’m sure I will,” said Judith. This was a good development, more like what she had hoped the visit would become. Family albums and welcoming hugs and funny stories about what Herman was like when he was two. She snuggled back against the tattered cushions and looked down at the album. “This must go back generations.”

Mrs. Sloan still hadn’t opened it. “Not really,” she said. “As far as I know, the Sloans never mastered photography on their own. All of the pictures in here are mine.”

“May I . . . ?” Judith put out her hands, and with a shrug Mrs. Sloan handed the album over.

“I should warn you — ” began Mrs. Sloan.

Judith barely listened. She opened the album to the first page.

And shut it, almost as quickly. She felt her face flush, with shock and anger. She looked at Mrs. Sloan, expecting to see that cruel, nasty smile back again. But Mrs. Sloan wasn’t smiling.

“I was about to say,” said Mrs. Sloan, reaching over and taking the album back, “that I should warn you, this isn’t an ordinary family album.”

“I — ” Judith couldn’t form a sentence she was so angry. No wonder Herman hadn’t wanted her to meet his family.

“I took that photograph almost a year after I cut off my fingers,” said Mrs. Sloan. “Photography became a small rebellion for me, not nearly so visible as the mutilation. Herman’s father still doesn’t know about it, even though I keep the book out here in full view. Sloan men don’t open books much.

“But we do, don’t we, Judith?”

Mrs. Sloan opened the album again, and pointed at the Polaroid on the first page. Judith wanted to look away, but found that she couldn’t.

“Herman’s father brought the three of them home early, before I’d woken up — I don’t know where he found them. Maybe he just called, and they were the ones who answered.”

“They” were three women. The oldest couldn’t have been more than twenty-five. Mrs. Sloan had caught them naked and asleep, along with what looked like Herman’s father. One woman had her head cradled near Mr. Sloan’s groin; another was cuddled in the white folds of his armpit, her wet hair fanning like seaweed across his shoulder; the third lay curled in a foetal position off his wide flank. Something dark was smeared across her face.

“And no, they weren’t prostitutes,” said Mrs. Sloan. “I had occasion to talk to one of them on her way out; she was a newlywed, she and her husband had come up for a weekend at the family cottage. She was, she supposed, going back to him.”

“That’s sick,” gasped Judith, and meant it. She truly felt ill. “Why would you take something like that?”

“Because,” replied Mrs. Sloan, her voice growing sharp again, “I found that I could. Mr. Sloan was distracted, as you can see, and at that instant I found some of the will that he had kept from me since we met.”

“Sick,” Judith whispered. “Herman was right. We shouldn’t have come.”

When Mrs. Sloan closed the album this time, she put it back underneath the coffee table. She patted Judith’s arm with her mutilated hand and smiled. “No, no, dear. I’m happy you’re here — happier than you can know.”

Judith wanted nothing more at that moment than to get up, grab her suitcase, throw it in the car and leave. But of course she couldn’t. Herman wasn’t back yet, and she couldn’t think of leaving without him.

“If Herman’s father was doing all these things, why didn’t you just divorce him?”

“If that photograph offends you, why don’t you just get up and leave, right now?”

“Herman — ”

“Herman wouldn’t like it,” Mrs. Sloan finished for her. “That’s it, isn’t it?” Judith nodded.

“He’s got you too,” continued Mrs. Sloan, “just like his father got me. But maybe it’s not too late for you.”

“I love Herman. He never did anything like . . . like that.”

“Of course you love him. And I love Mr. Sloan — desperately, passionately, over all reason.” The corner of Mrs. Sloan’s mouth perked up in a small, bitter grin.

“Would you like to hear how we met?”

Judith wasn’t sure she would, but she nodded anyway. “Sure.”

“I was living in Toronto with a friend at the time, had been for several years. As I recall, she was more than a friend — we were lovers.” Mrs. Sloan paused, obviously waiting for a reaction. Judith sat mute, her expression purposefully blank.

Mrs. Sloan went on: “In our circle of friends, such relationships were quite fragile. Usually they would last no longer than a few weeks. It was, so far as we knew anyway, a minor miracle that we’d managed to stay together for as long as we had.” Mrs. Sloan gave a bitter laugh. “We were very proud.”

“How did you meet Herman’s father?”

“On a train,” she said quickly. “A subway train. He didn’t even speak to me. I just felt his touch. I began packing my things that night. I can’t even remember what I told her. My friend.”

“It can’t have been like that.”

Judith started to get up, but Mrs. Sloan grabbed her, two fingers and a thumb closing like a trap around her forearm. Judith fell back down on the sofa. “Let go!”

Mrs. Sloan held tight. With her other hand she took hold of Judith’s face and pulled it around to face her.

“Don’t argue with me,” she hissed, her eyes desperately intent. “You’re wasting time. They’ll be back soon, and when they are, we won’t be able to do anything.

“
We’ll be under their spell again!
”

Something in her tone caught Judith, and instead of breaking away, of running to the car and waiting inside with the doors locked until Herman got back — instead of slapping Mrs. Sloan, as she was half-inclined to do — Judith sat still.

“Then tell me what you mean,” she said, slowly and deliberately.

Mrs. Sloan let go, and Judith watched as relief flooded across her features. “We’ll have to open the album again,” she said. “That’s the only way I can tell it.”

The pictures were placed in the order they’d been taken. The first few were close-ups of different parts of Mr. Sloan’s anatomy, always taken while he slept. They could have been pictures of Herman, and Judith saw nothing strange about them until Mrs. Sloan began pointing out the discrepancies: “Those ridges around his nipples are made of something like fingernails,” she said of one, and “the whole ear isn’t any bigger than a nickel,” she said, pointing to another grainy Polaroid. “His teeth are barely nubs on his gums, and his navel . . . look, it’s a
slit
. I measured it after I took this, and it was nearly eight inches long. Sometimes it grows longer, and I’ve seen it shrink to less than an inch on cold days.”

“I’d never noticed before,” murmured Judith, although as Mrs. Sloan pointed to more features she began to remember other things about Herman: the thick black hairs that only grew between his fingers, his black triangular toenails that never needed cutting . . . and where were his fingernails? Judith shivered with the realization.

Mrs. Sloan turned the page.

“Did you ever once stop to wonder what you saw in such a creature?” she asked Judith.

“Never,” Judith replied, wonderingly.

“Look,” said Mrs. Sloan, pointing at the next spread. “I took these pictures in June of 1982.”

At first they looked like nature pictures, blue-tinged photographs of some of the land around the Sloans’ house. But as Judith squinted she could make out a small figure wearing a heavy green overcoat. Its head was a little white pinprick in the middle of a farmer’s field. “Mr. Sloan,” she said, pointing.

Mrs. Sloan nodded. “He walks off in that direction every weekend. I followed him that day.”