The Uncanny Reader (34 page)

*   *   *

“The Jesters! God damn them.”

Another party on the back terrace. From late afternoon until past midnight.

Amplified rock music. Throbbing notes penetrating the dense thicket of trees. The Jesters were thrumming with life: there was no avoiding the Jesters who penetrated the very air.

The wife returned from her chemo treatment ashen-faced, staggering. Fell onto a bed and tried to sleep for three hours during which time she tried not to be upset by the amplified music-through-the-trees and by her own nausea. The husband had shut himself in his
home office
.

Crack!—crack! Crack-crack-crack!

(Was it gunfire? From the Jesters' property?)

Hunting was forbidden in Crescent Lake Farms. As were firecrackers, fireworks—any kind of noisy activity that was a
disturbance of the peace and privacy of one's neighbors.

Middle of the night, uplifted voices. Waking the husband and the wife from their troubled sleep.

The adult Jesters were arguing with one another, it seemed. A man's voice sharp as a claw hammer, a woman's voice sharp as flung nails. At 3:20
A.M.

(Were the children involved in the argument? This wasn't clear, initially.)

(Yes, at least one of the children was crying. A forlorn sound like that of a small creature grasped in the jaws of an owl, being carried to the uppermost branches of a tree to be devoured.)

“We have to speak with them. This can't continue.”

“We should file a complaint. That might be more practical.”

“With the Homeowners Association? Nobody there gives a damn.”

“With the township police, then. ‘Disturbing the peace'—‘suspicion of child abuse.'”

“No! The Jesters could sue, if we made such allegations and couldn't prove them.”

“Then we should speak with them. Maybe we can work something out.” The wife paused, trying to control her voice. She was very shaken, and close to tears. “They're decent people, probably. They don't realize how disturbing they are to their neighbors. They will listen to reason…”

In their bedroom, in the night. The husband saw that the wife was ashen-faced, and trembling; the wife saw, with a pang of love for him, a despairing sort of love, that the husband was looking strained, older than his age; beneath his eyes, bruised-looking shadows. Yet he tried to smile at her. He took her hand, squeezed the fingers. He was like an actor who has forgotten his lines, yet will make his way through the scene, eyes clutching the eyes of his fellow actor, the two of them stumbling together.

“I'm so sorry this is happening to us. Now you're retired, you should be spared any more stress. I wish I knew what to do.”

“Don't be ridiculous. It isn't up to you. I should be more forceful. We can't let our lives be ruined by the Jesters.”

It was quiet now. The terrible quarrel had flared up, like wild fire, and abruptly ceased. There had been a sharp noise like the shutting of a door.

Tentatively the husband and the wife lay back down in their bed, the wife huddling in the husband's arms. By slow degrees they drifted into sleep.

*   *   *

Slap-slap-
slap
. The boys had returned to their basketball practice, early-morning. The dogs were barking. Someone shouted words that were nearly distinct—
Don't! God damn you.

*   *   *

“If you're coming with me, come on.”

“But, are you sure…”

“We have no choice! We'll talk with them, and if they don't cooperate we'll file a formal complaint with the township police.”

Bravely the husband spoke. The wife hurried to keep up with him, headed for their car. She saw that the husband had shaved hastily and that tiny blood-nicks shone in his jaws.

The husband always drove. The wife sat beside him, sometimes clutching at the dashboard when the husband drove quickly and erratically and spoke as he drove, distracted.

The husband was saying that there have been “primitive cultures” in which the populace cut down trees year after year—decade after decade—until at last there was but a single tree remaining on the island—(evidently, these were “island aboriginals”)—and this tree, they cut down.

Then, there were no more trees. The people were amazed.

Amazed and mystified.
For there had always been trees.

Where had the trees gone? Had demons cast a spell? The belief of centuries was,
there had always been trees.

The husband said grimly, “You do not question inherited beliefs. That is blasphemy, and blasphemy will get you killed.”

The husband laughed, “Yet: where are the trees?”

The wife had no idea what the husband was talking about. She had missed his initial remarks, as they'd climbed into their car, in haste and yet in determination.

She thought
Does he mean, we have no idea what will happen to us next? Or does he mean—we can alter our future, before it's too late?

The husband drove along East Crescent Lake Drive, and at Juniper Road he turned right; a half mile north on Juniper, and a right turn onto a smaller road, then another small road, then West Crescent Drive.

“These houses are beautiful. And the landscaping…”

The wife spoke admiringly. The wife was very nervous, both of the husband's driving, which was too fast for the circumstances, and of their impending destination,

The husband said, “West Crescent isn't any different than East Crescent. The houses are no more beautiful here. The landscaping is similar. In fact, some of the houses are identical with houses on our road. Look—that Colonial? It's a replica of the Colonial a few doors down from us.”

The wife wasn't so sure. This Colonial had dark green shutters; the Colonial on East Crescent Lake Drive had dark red shutters.

They came to 88 East Crescent Drive. The road curved as their road did, and the cul-de-sac resembled theirs. To their surprise, the mailbox at the Jesters' house was made of white brick and stainless steel, exactly like their own, but the Jesters' mailbox door was opened, and the interior of the mailbox crammed with what looked like an accumulation of rain-soaked junk mail.

Growing in a little patch at the base of the mailbox were ugly, coarse-flowering weeds. In a little patch at the base of their mailbox the wife had planted marigolds as she did every year.

“Oh my God! Look.”

“What is…”

To their astonishment, the house they believed to belong to the Jesters resembled their own, though not precisely. It was a sprawling country house of weathered shingleboard, large, with a horseshoe driveway like their own, but badly cracked and weedy. The elegant plantings in the Jesters' lawn had been allowed to grow wild. Rotted tree limbs lay scattered in the weedy grass.

The husband and the wife were stunned. The husband and the wife were nearly speechless. For it seemed that the Jesters' house had been damaged in some way, and was boarded up.

“Do you think—no one lives here?”

“That isn't possible…”

The husband had parked their car at the curb. Cautiously now they were making their way up the driveway, staring.

Waiting for a dog to rush at them, barking.… Two dogs.

It was so; the shingleboard house was shut up. Seemingly abandoned. No one lived here, or had lived here in a while. There was a dark stain across half the façade, like scorch.

It
was
scorch—smoke damage.

As the husband and the wife approached the house, they saw that there was a faded-yellow tape around it, at least so far as they could see. On the tape were repeated DO NOT ENTER BY ORDER OF HECATE TOWNSHIP FIRE DEPT.—DO NOT ENTER BY ORDER OF HECATE TOWNSHIP FIRE DEPT.—in black, badly faded.

The fire could not have been recent. But how was this possible?

Boldly the husband approached the house, stooping beneath the yellow tape. The wife protested, “Wait! Where are you going? It's a violation of the law…”

“No one is here. No one is watching.”

“But—maybe it's dangerous.”

(It might not have been correct, that no one was watching. Just outside the cul-de-sac, at 86 East Crescent Drive, there was a large putty-colored French Provincial house with numerous glittering windows. And a vehicle parked in the driveway.)

The husband approached the front door, stepping on debris on the stoop. As if to ring the doorbell, though obviously there was no one inside the wreck of a house.

They could see now that fire damage was considerable. From the road, it had not been so evident. Much of the house had collapsed, at the rear; downstairs windows were boarded up, somewhat carelessly; part of the roof, burnt through, had collapsed. The wife was shivering in the midsummer heat.
Did anyone die in the fire? How many?
The wife did not want to think
Was it arson? And when?
Beside the heavy oak door there were inset windows, of stained glass, which were partly broken but not boarded up; through these, the husband and the wife stared into the house, into a foyer with a silly, forlorn-looking crystal chandelier, a badly stained tile floor, miscellaneous overturned furniture.

A chair lying on its side. A crooked mirror, reflecting what looked like mist, or gas. Smoke stains like widespread black wings on the once-white wall.

A smell of something terrible, like burnt flesh.

“Please! Let's leave.”

“No one can see us.”

“People have died here. You can tell. Please let's
leave
.”

The husband laughed at the wife, irascibly. In the reflected light from the stained glass his skin was unnaturally mottled, rubefacient; his eyes narrowed with thought, a kind of frightened animal cunning. His nostrils widened and contracted as if, like an animal, he was sniffing the air for danger.

The wife pulled at his arm and he threw off her hand. But he relented, and followed her back to their car.

The wife saw that the husband had parked the car crookedly at the curb. It was a large gleaming new-model Acura, a beautiful silvery-green color, yet parked so carelessly it looked clownish. The husband saw this too and drew in his breath sharply.

“What the hell? I didn't park the car like this.”

“You must have.”

“I said,
I did not
.”

“Then who did?”

“You drove.”

“I did not drive! You drove.”

“You drove, and you parked the car like a drunken woman or a—a senile woman. Lucky we aren't in town, you'd have a ticket.”

“But I didn't drive here. I would never have driven here. I didn't even bring my handbag, with my driver's license.”

“Driving without a license! That's
points
on your license.”

The wife was deeply agitated. The smell of the burnt house and what had burnt inside it was still in her nostrils. Badly she wanted to flee home and lie down on the bed and hide her face and sleep but in the corner of her eye she saw a figure approaching her and the husband, from the house across the cul-de-sac. A white-haired woman, genteel, with kindly eyes, in gardening clothes, on her head a wide-brimmed straw hat. On her hands, gloves. The wife saw that the white-haired woman had been tending to roses bordering the driveway of her house, a striking red-brick Edwardian with a deep front lawn. Obviously, the white-haired woman had, like the wife, a gardener-helper who came at least once a week to till the soil for her and take out the worst of the weeds.

“Excuse me! Hello.”

The white-haired woman removed her soiled gloves, smiling at the husband and the wife. Hers was a beautiful ruin of a face, soft as a leather glove; her nose was thin, aristocratic. Her small mouth was pale primrose-pink.

“Are you—by any chance—considering that house? I mean—to buy?”

“To
buy
? The house isn't in any condition to be inhabited.”

“Yes. But it could be rebuilt and repaired.”

“And it isn't for sale anyway, so far as we can see. Is it?”

“I wouldn't know. I mean—it might be listed with a realtor. Realtor's signs aren't allowed in Crescent Lake Farms.”

The white-haired woman smiled at them wistfully. She went on to say how hopeful they all were, on West Crescent Drive, that someone would buy the house soon, and restore it. “What a beautiful house it was! This is all such a shame and a—tragedy.”

“Why? What happened?”

“The fire was—wasn't—an accident. So the investigators ruled.”

“Who set the fire, if it wasn't an accident? One of the sons?”

Seeing that the husband was eager to know, the white-haired woman became cautious. She backed away, though with a polite smile.

“No one knows. Not definitely.”

“
Was
there a son? A teenager?”

“There's an investigation—ongoing. It's been years now. I don't know anything more.”

“You must know if they died in the fire? Someone did die—yes?”

“Who?”

“Who? The Jesters, of course.
How many of them died in the fire?
”

The husband was speaking harshly. The wife was embarrassed of his vehemence, with this gracious stranger. She tugged at his arm, to bring him back to himself.

“‘The Jesters'? I don't understand.”

“What was the name of the family who lived here?”

“I—don't remember. I have to leave now.”

The white-haired woman turned quickly away. That so gracious a person would turn her back on fellow residents of Crescent Lake Farms was astonishing to the wife though the husband grunted as if such rude behavior only confirmed his suspicions.

“Let's go. ‘The Jesters' are taboo, it seems.”

The husband drove. At the intersection of West Crescent Drive with a smaller road called Lilac Terrace he turned left, thinking to take a shortcut to Juniper, and home; but Lilac Terrace turned out, as the wife might have told the husband, to be a dead end. NO OUTLET.