Backcast Page 4

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And you fix granddad’s bike—for free?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He sighed again. “Okay, then. I guess I done stupider stuff in my time.”

  Quinn gave the brothers her biggest, toothy grin. “You won’t regret it.”

  “Hold on a minute.” Junior had one more question. “Who is this sponsor you got in mind?”

  She smiled. “You boys ever heard of Astroglide?”

  “I’ve been kicking some ideas around, and I’m leaning toward sculpting this whole thing as a latticework of stylized webs—separate, but interconnected.” Barb laced her fingers together. “Made from found objects—things I’ve been collecting and stockpiling for years, waiting for a project like this. I envision a structure the viewer will walk through to experience—much like each of us walked through the experiences depicted by our stories.”

  Viv chuckled. “That sounds vaguely like the funhouse at Coney Island.”

  “Yeah,” Darien Black agreed. “But in my experience, funhouses were rarely fun.”

  “Precisely.” Barb pointed her web of fingers at Darien. “That’s just what I’m getting at.”

  Barb and her coterie of authors were scattered around the lobby area of the inn on comfy chairs. The bar wasn’t officially open yet, but Barb made arrangements with her innkeeper cousin, Page, to use the space in the afternoons for their bull sessions. Part of that deal included opening the bar early for afternoon cocktails.

  When the weather warmed up, they’d move their meetings outside to the big white Adirondack chairs that dotted the lawn.

  “I still don’t get it.” Montana Jackson was confused. “What possible relationship do spiderwebs have with writing? And what the hell is a ‘found object’?”

  “A found object,” Viv explained, “is something you find. Right, Barb?”

  “You mean like your lost virtue?” Quinn asked.

  “Ha.” Towanda slapped Quinn on the arm. “She never had any virtue to lose, you nimrod.”

  “Fuck you, Wanda.” Viv shot her the bird. “You’re just still jealous that I beat your ass out for that Lammy shortlist last year.”

  Towanda glared at Viv. “It’s no accident that your name shows up on any list with the word ‘short’ in it. Besides, that wasn’t even my category. My publisher made a mistake on the submission forms.”

  “Right.” Viv rolled her eyes. “I get it. Because your book should have been entered in—what was it? Genderqueer Scatological Anthologies?”

  Quinn looked at her. “They have that category now? I never hear about this stuff.”

  Kate rolled her eyes. “Can we please return to the original topic, ladies?” Her exasperation was starting to show. Shawn patted her on the knee.

  Barb sighed. “As I was saying—Virginia Woolf wrote about this very thing in A Room of One’s Own.” She held up a paperback and opened it to a bookmarked page.

  . . . fiction is like a spider’s web, attached ever so lightly perhaps, but still attached to life at all four corners . . . these webs are not spun in mid-air by incorporeal creatures, but are the work of suffering human beings, and are attached to grossly material things, like health and money and the houses we live in.

  “What’s so material about the houses we live in?” Towanda asked.

  “Nothing in your case,” Viv replied. “I don’t think double-wides count.”

  Towanda narrowed her eyes. “Nice one. Too bad the only double-wide around here is your ass.”

  Gwen Carlisle chuckled and drained her tumbler of Scotch. “I’m empty. Anybody else ready for a refill?”

  Quinn held up her pilsner glass. “I’ll take another one of those Backcast ales.”

  Darien looked at her. “Was it any good?”

  Quinn nodded enthusiastically.

  Darien held up a finger. “I’ll take one, too.” She looked at the white-haired woman, slumped on the sofa beside her. “How about you, Linda?”

  Linda Evans shook her head. “I don’t much care for microbrews—and I’m fighting a migraine. I’ll stick with my Pellegrino.”

  Gwen was on her feet. “Anybody else?”

  Cricket MacBean held up her glass. “Oban. Two fingers.”

  “Got it. Back in a jiff.” Gwen wandered off toward the bar.

  “What I’m still unclear about,” V. Jay-Jay Singh asked, “is how we decide what to write about, and how those narratives will relate to each other?”

  “That’s the beauty of this approach,” Barb explained. “What you write about is what you write about. Because we’re all women—and we’re all lesbians.” she glanced at Towanda. “Or women connected to lesbians—it’s ninety-five percent likely that our stories will overlap organically. We shouldn’t have to script anything.”

  V. Jay-Jay didn’t look convinced. “I don’t really subscribe to the view that anything about writing is organic. I’ve never been a ‘panster.’ I don’t think things just magically come together without an outline. We need a plan—something to write to. A grand design for how all of these narratives will fit together and compliment each other.”

  “Well, I’ve never been called a panster before. But I guess I agree with Barb on this.” Darien turned in her chair to face V. Jay-Jay. “I don’t know about you, but my story could pretty much write itself.”

  V. Jay-Jay wasn’t buying it. “Frankly, I don’t relish the idea of revisiting my ‘story.’ Some sleeping dogs should be left to lie in peace.”

  “If that’s how you feel, then why did you agree to come?”

  V. Jay-Jay looked at Quinn. “I didn’t say that I didn’t want to participate—just that I was uncomfortable with an open-ended process.”

  “Well. I, for one, work better without any confinement.” Cricket glanced toward the bar area.

  Gwen was returning with the drinks.

  “Okay, then—how about we do a combined approach?” It was clear that Barb was ready to move on. “How many of you would feel more comfortable working in teams, or writing to some kind of master plan?”

  A few hands went up. Barb counted.

  “Four. Okay.” Barb waited until Gwen finished distributing the refills. “How many of you feel comfortable developing your essays more organically?”

  Quinn looked perplexed. Barb noticed her expression.

  “On your own,” she clarified.

  Four more hands shot up.

  “That’s eight.” Barb considered the remaining three authors who had not indicated a preference for either approach. “So, you three who indicated no preference? What does that mean?”

  “We can’t commit?” Towanda offered.

  “She wasn’t talking about relationships,” Viv quipped.

  Shawn smiled.

  “Okay.” Barb made some notes on a pad. “That was easy. You three are now lodge sisters.”

  “Do we get a flag and a song?” Viv asked.

  Barb looked at her. “Do you need them?”

  “No. But I’ve always wanted them.”

  Barb rolled her eyes. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  “How about the rest of us?” Quinn asked.

  “Gimme a second.” Barb made two more lists on her pad. “Okay.” She took off her glasses. “Here’s what we’ll do. I’ve divided you up into three teams based on your preferred work styles. I want team members to get together with each other at least once a day. I’ll call us all back together a couple of times each week so the teams can share progress and talk about where we are. That will help me begin to get a handle on the direction of the physical aspects of the project.” She looked around the room. “Any questions?”

  There were none.

  “Okay.” Barb held up her notepad. “Here are the teams. Pansters: Darien, Quinn, Gwen, and Cricket. Outliners: V. Jay-Jay, Kate, Montana, and Linda. Pantyliners: Viv, Shawn, and Towanda.

  Kate snickered.

  “Pantyliners?” Shawn asked.

  Barb looked at her. “You got
a better term?”

  Shawn thought about it. “I guess not.”

  “Great.” Barb smiled at the group. “Ladies, start your engines.”

  Essay 1

  Hunters are not holy men.

  That’s what the Bible says. I guess this saying is kind of like the CliffsNotes version of the Jacob and Esau story. Do you remember that one? The great hunter, Esau, surrenders his birthright for a bowl of lentil stew. And Esau’s brother, Jacob, later tricks their blind father into blessing him instead of Esau by covering his neck and hands with skin from a freshly killed goat.

  I guess Esau was kind of a hairy guy.

  Lord knows, we heard enough about Bible stories like this one every day. But as much as people in my family loved to talk about the Bible, not very many of them paid attention to the lessons it taught.

  I lived my life trying to find ways to steer clear of being hurt. One thing my childhood gave me were lots of opportunities to practice my art. I got pretty good at it. I learned that if I distracted myself enough, I could get through just about anything without being scarred—at least on the outside. It was really a creative way to make the bad stuff happen to somebody else. After a while, it worked so well that I stopped feeling anything. I didn’t really mind that, either. But, sometimes, I’d find ways to try and test that out—just to see where the boundaries were between numbness and pain.

  One of the things I’d do was subject myself to things I was sure would scare me or creep me out. That’s why I agreed to go along when my uncle, another hunter, asked me if I wanted to watch him skin some rabbits he’d just shot. He’d been hunting with my grandfather that day. It was wintertime, and I guess rabbits were in season. Or not. It didn’t really matter. They had a lot of their own land to tromp around on whenever they wanted to. And it wasn’t like anyone would try to stop them.

  He said it would only take a few minutes, so I pulled on my coat and followed him outside. I didn’t bother putting my mittens on, since he said we weren’t going to be out there for very long. But once I joined him on the wooden porch behind the house, I wished I had. It was still snowing, but not very hard. The air was frigid, and my breath swirled around in front of my face like a dense fog. I shoved my hands into the pockets of my cloth coat to try and keep them warm. The lining inside the coat was torn, but I twisted my hands up inside the wool fabric as best I could.

  The rabbits were all bunched together in a big bucket that sat on the ground next to the steps. It was nearly dark, but I could see them all clearly. They were cottontails, and there were probably six or eight of them. They were stuffed into the bucket, headfirst. Their floppy legs drooped over the sides like wilted flower stalks. Splotchy bits of wet snow stuck to their dense, dark gray fur.

  They looked like they were sleeping—all except for that part about being facedown in a tin bucket, pockmarked with tiny red holes from the .410 shells.

  I tried to be tough and not show my uncle how scared and sick I suddenly felt. I really thought I was strong enough to watch this. After all, I knew where most of the meat my family ate came from. I’d just never gone hunting—I wasn’t old enough yet. But both of my brothers had, and my sister had, too. In my family, it was what you did.

  My uncle pulled the first rabbit up out of the bucket and held it aloft. Before I had time to prepare myself for what was about to happen, he took hold of one of its legs and twisted the skin beneath its foot until it tore and separated from the bone. Then he grabbed hold of the loose flap and yanked it free in one quick motion. The skin made a hissing sound as it peeled away from the tiny frame. There was no blood, but the warm, pink flesh he exposed glowed in the fading light. Steam rose off the small body as it hung there in the early night air, swaying in his grasp like the censer our priest waved over the altar during Mass.

  I felt my insides begin to churn. I knew I was going to throw up. Why was this bothering me so much? My uncle wasn’t paying any attention to me. He was working quickly now. He had his skinning knife out, and he was gutting the rabbit. When he laid the small, naked body down on the porch floor and took up a bigger knife to separate its head, I felt myself starting to sway. Suddenly, I was the rabbit—and it was my own naked body that lay there exposed to him—small and afraid. It was my warmth and innocence that were being torn away and discarded with the same, swift precision.

  Rows of lifeless eyes stared up at me from the backdrop of cold, white snow. They were like the eyes that looked back at me from the dark windows of my upstairs bedroom, where I’d sit, hunched-up and vigilant through the long winter nights, waiting. Waiting to hear the faint creak of floorboard that would signify my own unveiling.

  Inside the pockets of my coat, I clenched my hands into fists so tight I could feel my fingernails cutting into my palms. The blood felt warm and sticky as it filled up my palms. That helped. That worked. I could concentrate on that and not on the small heaps of fresh death that steamed on the cold ground at my feet.

  I wanted to take up the discarded wads of fur and skin and wrap myself in them. Maybe then, like Jacob, I would be mistaken for someone else, too—someone bigger, wiser—without weakness or fear.

  Instead, I stood and watched without speaking. And soon, the pain in my palms replaced my sickness and terror.

  I had passed another test.

  Hunters were not holy men.

  But neither were the brothers who stole their birthrights.

  2

  Found Objects

  “What the hell are those two crazy-ass white women doing?” Mavis blew out a chest full of smoke. It snaked out across the lawn in a meandering, white stream, headed toward the spot where Quinn and Montana stood together at the end of the dock. They appeared to be engaged in some kind of erratic activity that involved snapping long, whip-like poles back and forth at the sky.

  Barb followed her gaze.

  “Casting,” she explained. “Can I have one of those? I left mine in the room.”

  Mavis handed Barb her pack of Camels. “Casting? What the hell is that?”

  “It’s a fishing thing.”

  Mavis huffed. “They look ridiculous.”

  “They are ridiculous.” Barb laughed. “But that’s unrelated to casting.”

  Mavis took another long drag off her cigarette. She slowly wagged her head from side to side. “She’s really serious about this tournament thing, isn’t she?”

  “It appears so. She said she got a lead on a boat to borrow. Montana is helping her learn how to use some of the equipment.”

  “Hell. Those look like the normal tools of her trade. I don’t know why she’d need any help learning how to swing a damn whip around.”

  “Those aren’t whips. They’re fly rods.”

  “Say what?”

  “Fly rods. Special kinds of fishing poles.”

  “I don’t know why you all can’t just go bowling like normal people.”

  “We are normal people.”

  “Not where I’m from, you ain’t.”

  Barb raised an eyebrow. “Really? Maybe we should ask Marvin about that?”

  “Maybe not.”

  Barb laughed. It turned into a cough.

  “You need to start tapering off on those things.”

  “Why?” Barb cleared her throat. “It won’t make any difference. I’ve been at it too long.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  Barb looked at her. “Yes, I do.”

  Mavis held up a hand. “Hey? Don’t shoot the messenger, okay?”

  “Forget about that. I’ve been wanting to talk with you about something else.”

  “What?” Mavis already knew Barb pretty well, and spending a week with her in the cramped confines of a pickup truck during their cross-county drive bred even more familiarity. It was enough to make her suspicious.

  Then again, suspicion was pretty much Mavis’s first response to any kind of request. It made her day job as a bailiff in the San Diego jail a lot less eventful.

  Barb was givi
ng her that look. “Don’t automatically say no.”

  Mavis rolled her eyes.

  “I’m serious. I know how you are.”

  “Woman, you don’t know jack shit about how I am.”

  “I know enough to know that I want you to write one of the essays for my exhibit.”

  Mavis was incredulous. “Are you crazy?”

  “Not usually.”

  “I’m not a writer.”

  Barb shrugged.

  “And we both know that I’m not like the rest of these bimbos, either.”

  “I wouldn’t call them bimbos.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “I do.” Barb nodded. “But that doesn’t matter. You have as much right to talk about your experience as they have to talk about theirs.”

  “Suppose I don’t want to talk about my experience?”

  “Just do me a favor, and consider it. Okay? I think you have an important story that other people should hear—and I need a thirteenth essay for the show.”

  Mavis didn’t reply. She finished her cigarette, and ground out the butt against the sole of her shoe.

  “Think about it,” Barb said. “That’s all.”

  Mavis ignored her comment. She was watching Quinn and Montana again. They really did look ridiculous—like a lesbian Abbott and Costello.

  “Somebody’s going to end up getting killed on that damn boat.”

  “Why?” Barb asked.

  “Cause piloting a boat ain’t like riding a Harley.”

  “And you know this because?”

  Mavis looked at her. “I live in San Diego.”

  “You know something about boats?”

  Mavis shrugged. “I used to. Before I signed on with the PD, I worked on the Coronado ferry.”

  Barb’s eyes widened. “You drove a ferry?”

  “Hell fuck no. You have to have about a zillion hours of time to be a ferry pilot. I was just a deckhand. But I know enough to know that you don’t go roaring out, half-cocked, when you can’t tell goddamned bow from stern.”

  “Maybe you can help her out?”

  Mavis looked at her like she was a creature from another planet. “Are you crazy?”