Richard Laymon: Island

Indeed, when Gerda and I go to the Laymon house for dinner, we sometimes wonder if Ann is really the gentle lady she seems to be or if she is engaged in a masquerade as clever as her husband’s. When she’s cooking, I pop into the kitchen unannounced—just to be sure that she’s adding only herbs and spices to each dish and not anything lethal. When she picks up a carving knife, I ease to the edge of my chair, prepared to leap away from the table and throw myself out of the nearest dining-room window if she should move in my direction instead of toward the turkey or roast. Several times, I’ve been a bit too edgy, misjudged her intention, and hurled myself through a pane of glass, only to look back into the house from the lawn and see her standing over the roast, looking astonished and bewildered. Too embarrassed to admit my suspicions, I always claim to have been catapulted out of the room by a catastrophic muscle spasm, and I think she buys that story because she keeps giving me the names of medical specialists who might be able to help me—though lately they have all been psychiatrists.

I keep a sly watch on Kelly, too. When she was a tiny little girl, she was so cute that you could have dangled her from one of the branches of a Christmas tree, and everyone would have been so dazzled by her that they wouldn’t have noticed any of the other decorations—yet she always had an unexpected wit that was more sophisticated and astringent than the average child’s sense of humor. One night, when six of us adults sat around the Laymon dinner table, having a grand good time, Gerda realized that Kelly was standing in the doorway, in her pajamas, quietly commenting on our conversation; Gerda nudged me, and when I tuned out the adults and tuned in Kelly, she was funnier than any of us—even though we thought ourselves reasonably amusing. Not long thereafter, during a visit to an amusement park with the Laymons, as we were suddenly swept up in a surging crowd, little Kelly—then no bigger than an elf—reached for my hand, gripping it tightly, and I was touched by her genuine vulnerability and more deeply touched by the fact that she trusted me to keep her safe; yet this same little girl eschewed the usual dollhouse and played, instead, with a miniature haunted castle full of monster figures and beheaded victims. That is a fact, not a comic exaggeration. Now, many years later, Kelly is a young lady, quieter than the sprightly imp of yore, even demure. Nevertheless, she is her father’s daughter, with those same strange genes, and if at dinner some evening she were to say, “Let me carve the roast, Mom,” I’m certain I’d have another catastrophic muscle spasm and wind up on the lawn amidst shattered window glass.

If Island is your kind of book, I’m pleased you’ve found the work of Richard Laymon. I only wish all of you could have had the additional pleasure of knowing Dick Laymon as well as I did. In truth, the strangest thing about him is that he tolerated me as a friend.

Today, the yacht exploded.

Fortunately, all of us had gone ashore to have a picnic on this island, so we didn’t get blown to smithereens. All of us, that is, except Prince Wesley.

Prince Wesley wasn’t actually a prince. He was actually an asshole. Sorry about that; you’re not supposed to speak ill of the dead. But he was a royal pain in the butt and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the explosion was his fault. He probably picked the wrong time and place to light up a cigarette.

Kaboom!

Now he’s fish nibbles.

I’m sorry he’s dead, but he was a ridiculous, arrogant jerk. He was a grown man; all of thirty, I suppose, but he went around all the time wearing one of those stupid white yachting hats. And you never saw him that he wasn’t strutting around the deck with his ivory cigarette-holder hoisting up a Marlboro in front of one eye or the other. Oh yeah, he wore aviator sunglasses, too. And an ascot, more often than not.

Anyway, that was Prince Wesley. He’s dead, so I won’t spend any more time running him down. His actual name, for the record, was Wesley Duncan Beaverton III. He died today, April 1, 1994, which is not only April Fool’s Day, but also happens to be Good Friday. What a day to go.

He is survived by his wife, Thelma. Who ought to consider herself lucky to be rid of him, but instead seems to be terribly upset.

Wesley and Thelma didn’t have any children, but they’d only been married for about a year.

Personally, I think he married her for her money.

He sure didn’t marry Thelma for her good looks. Her sister got all of them. The sister, Kimberly, is about twenty-five and a knockout. To think I’m marooned on a tropical isle with a babe like Kimberly…! Whoooey!

Not that anything much is likely to come of it. Aside from the fact that I’m a few years her junior and here as the guest of her half-sister, Connie, she’s married. Her husband, Keith, is one of those incredibly handsome, bright, sincere and capable guys who makes ordinary jerks (like me) look like we got stalled somewhere low down on the evolutionary ladder. I’d hate him, but he’s too nice to hate.

The other male with us here on the island is the sire of all three gals, Andrew (never Andy) Collins. His first wife, mother of Thelma and Kimberly, bit the big one in a snow skiing accident at Lake Tahoe. He subsequently married Billie, and together they had Connie.

This little yacht excursion in the Bahamas was a gift from the children to celebrate the twentieth wedding anniversary of Andrew and Billie. (Wesley came down to Nassau a week ahead of everyone else to set it up—scout the situation, check up on the hotel reservations, rent the boat, and so forth.) Andrew is probably in his mid-fifties. He’s retired Navy, rich because he invested in some sort of oil scheme that paid off huge, and a pretty decent guy. If you’re going to get marooned, he’s probably a good fellow to have along. A straight arrow, smart, and tough. He treats me okay, sort of, even though I’m sure he suspects I’ve been “putting it” to Connie.

Connie’s mother, Billie, is only a couple of years older than Thelma. In other words, she’s young enough that you’d logically take her as one of Andrew’s daughters, not his wife. She’s a lot better looking than Thelma, though not quite as hot as Kimberly.

She and Connie look more like sisters than like a mother and daughter. They both have dark tans and golden hair, and wear their hair in the same short, pixie style. Connie is slightly taller. Her mother is a lot fuller in the chest and hips, and of course looks older in the face. Actually, Billie is quite a bit more attractive in many ways than her daughter.

(I’d better make sure none of these folks gets a chance to read what I’m writing here. I’ve only just now started working on this journal, and I’ve already thrown in some stuff that could get me in trouble.) My plan, by the way, is to keep a detailed account of things, and use it as the basis for a “true adventure” sort of book. Which won’t pan out if we get rescued too soon. I’m hoping we’ll have to spend a while here, long enough for there to be a few more dramatic events. For the record, the reason I brought my writing pad when we came to the island is that I’ve been working on some short stories. I plan to win the Belmore fiction writing contest… Man, what an optimist! Maybe none of us will ever get off this island, in which case I might as well forget the writing contest. And a few other things.

Never mind.

Gonna depress myself, if I don’t watch out.

Anyway, back to the introductions.

Connie, daughter of Billie and Andrew, is my “girlfriend.” We’re both freshmen at Belmore University. That’s how I got to know her. We kept being forced together by the alphabet: she being a Collins, I a Conway. At a university, you can’t remain strangers for long with the person who immediately precedes you in the ABCs. Soon, we began talking to each other. After a while, we started going out. Before I knew it, she was inviting me to spend spring break with her family on a yacht in the Bahamas.