Peter Straub - If You Could See Me Now

“What’s that for?” asked a man approaching me from the high slope of the Sunderson drive. As he crossed the road I saw that he had a thick hard belly and a flat face with no cheer in it. He had a pudgy blob for a nose, signaling his family connection to Tula Sunderson. Like the hair of most men called “Red,” his was a dusty tobaccoish orange. He came across the road and laid an enormous hand on top of the open door. “Why do you wanta go honkin’ that horn for?”

“Out of joy. From sheer blinding happiness. My battery’s dead, so the car won’t move, and the damned key’s gone, probably lying somewhere in that ditch. And you might have noticed that a few gentlemen in Arden decided to work over the car this evening. So that’s why I was honking the horn.” I glared up into his doughy face and thought I saw a glint of amusement.

“Didn’t you hear my callin’ you before? When you jumped out of this-here jalopy and tore on up toward the woods?”

“Sure,” I said. “I didn’t have time to waste.”

“Well, I been waitin’ on the porch to see you come back. I sacked out up there a little bit — didn’t think you’d be so long. But just in case, I took your keys out of your jalopy. And I turned off your lights to save your battery.”

“Thanks. I mean it. But please give me the keys. Then we can both get to bed.”

“Wait up. What were you doin’ up there anyhow? Or were you just runnin’ away from me? You were sure goin’ like a jackrabbit. What are you tryin’ to get away with, Miles?”

“Well, Red, I can’t really say. I don’t think I’m trying to get away with anything.”

“Uh huh.” The amusement became more acid. “According to my ma, you been doin’ some pretty peculiar things up to Updahl’s. Says that little girl of Duane’s been hangin’ around more than she should. Specially considering the problem we got here lately. You kinda got a thing about hurting girls, don’t you, Miles?”

“No. I never did, either. Quit wasting my time and give me my keys.”

“What’s so good you got up in those woods?”

“Okay, Red,” I answered. “I’ll tell you the truth. I was visiting Rinn. You can ask her yourself. That’s where I was.”

“I guess you and that old witch got somethin’ going.”

“You can guess all you want. Just let me go home.”

“This ain’t your home, Miles. But I guess you can go back to Duane’s. Here’s your keys for this piece of shit you’re driving.” He held them out by extending one big blunt finger protruded through the keyring so that ring and keys looked dwarfed, like toys. It was a gesture obscurely obscene.

July 16

It was just eatin’ at me that Ma had to be working in the same house as that Miles Teagarden — I’ll tell you, if I’d been in Duane’s shoes, I wouldn’t of let my daughter hang around a man with a reputation like that. And some say he learned, good. I’d have run him off first thing, with a load of birdshot. So I thought, let’s see what we got here, and started comin’ down the drive to talk to him as soon as I saw his car begin to slow down outside below our house. Well Miles he jumps out of his car and looks away like he was seein’ things, and he just begins to run like crazy. When I yelled he just kept on running.

Now there’s two ways of looking at that. Either he was in one hell of a hurry to get at something in these woods, or he was runnin’ away from me. I say both. I’ll tell you, he was scared as hell of me when he came back. And that means he sure as hell was plannin’ out what was gonna happen up in those woods- — see?

I just said to myself, Red, you wait on him. He’ll be back. I went down and switched off the lights in that beat up junker of his. Then I waited for him. Ma and me both looked out for him for a little, and then she went up to bed, and I laid out on the porch. I had his keys, so I knew he wasn’t going anywhere without me.

Well, a long time later, he comes back. Steppin’ light. Loose as a goose. Walkin’ like a city nigger. When I got up close to him he was workin’ away at his car, swearin’ and bangin’ on the horn. Then I saw his face. He looked all burned or something — he had big red spots all over. The way Oscar Johnstad did when he got alcohol poisoning a few years back. Maybe somebody coulda been scratching on him.

I said, well Miles, what the hell you been up to?

I been makin’ myself happy, he says.

I says, up in the woods?

Yeah, he says, I go up there to make myself happy. I been seein’ Rinn.

How do we know what those two was up to?

Funny things go on with these old Norwegians in the valleys around here — -I’m a Norwegian myself, and I won’t say a word against ‘em, but some of those old people get up to crazy things. And that Rinn was crazy as a coot all her life. Sure she was. She was just about the only friend Miles had around here. You remember about old Ole, down at the Four Forks? Well, he was related to half the people in this valley, me included, and when he started going crazy he tied that half-wit daughter of his to a beam up in his attic and he started usin’ his other daughter as his wife. On Sundays he stood there at the back of the church lookin’ like an angry chunk of God that happened to land near Arden. That was twenty-thirty years ago, but funny things still go on. I never did trust Rinn. She could put the spooks in you. Some folks say Oscar Johnstad started drinking heavy because she put the evil eye on a heifer of his and he was afraid he was next.

The other thing you got think about is Paul Kant. Pretty soon after this, no more than a couple of days, is when he saw Paul. And then he tried to kill himself, didn’t he?

I think he wanted to get out of it, fast — maybe Rinn told him to do it, crazy as she was. Maybe little Paul did too. Well, if he didn’t he sure was sorry later. I mean, -whatever Paul Kant did to make himself happy, he didn’t go up into the valley woods at night to do it.

I feel all involved in this, you know. I found that poor Strand girl and talked to you fellows a couple of hours that day. I almost puked too, when I saw her — I knew nothing normal had been at that girl. She was damn near ripped in two. Well, you were there. You saw it.

So after we finally found out about the next one I got a call from one of the boys who drinks down at the Angler’s, about that car idea, and I said, sure go ahead, I’ll give you all the help you want. You set it up, and I’ll help over at this end.

By the time I got the car into the driveway, my face had begun to burn and itch; my eyes watered, and I left the car just past the walnut trees and walked diagonally across the lawn, pressing the palm of my unbandaged hand to my face. It felt as cool and healing as water. My lace was blazing. The night air too seemed oven-like and composed of a million sharp needling points. I was moving slowly, so that the rush of hot gelatinous air would not scrape at my face.

As I approached the house, all the lights came on at once.

It looked like a pleasure boat on dark water, but it made me feel cold. I lowered my hand from my face and went slowly toward the screen door. The mare in the field to my left began to whinny and rear.

I half-expected a jolt from the metal doorknob. I almost wished that I were back on that bed of mold, beneath those giant dark trees.

I crossed the porch, hearing no noise from the interior of the house. Through the mesh of the screen, I looked sideways to see the mare’s body plunging up and down, scattering the dumbfounded cows. Then I swung open the door to the sitting room and looked in — empty. Empty and cold. The old furniture lay randomly about, suggesting an as yet unlocated perfect order. All the lights, controlled by a single switch beside the doorframe, were burning. I touched the switch, aware that the mare had ceased her whinnying. The lights went off, then on, apparently working normally.