Craig Davidson - Rust and Bone - Stories

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Rust and Bone : Stories: краткое содержание, описание и аннотация

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In steel-tipped prose, Craig Davidson conjures a savage world populated by fighting dogs, prizefighters, sex addicts, gamblers, a repo man and a disappearing magician. The title of the lead story, “28 Bones”, refers to the number of bones in a boxer’s hands; once broken, they never heal properly, and the fighter’s career descends to bouts that have less to do with sport than with survival: no referee, no rules, not even gloves. In “A Mean Utility” we enter an even more desperate arena: dogfights where Rottweilers, pit bulls and Dobermans fight each other to the death. Davidson’s stories are small monuments to the telling detail. The hostility of his fictional universe is tempered by the humanity he invests in his characters and by his subtle and very moving observations of their motivation. In the tradition of Hemingway, "Rust and Bone" explores violence, masculinity and life on the margins. Visceral and with a dark urgency, this is a truly original debut.
Craig Davidson was born in Toronto and now lives in Iowa City. His novel
is also available from Penguin Canada.

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“Quit being a prima donna. Why?”

“How will he know I’ve been successful?”

“What, did you pack awards and plaques? I’m sure he reads the paper.”

Jess bartered him down to the duffel bag and a suitcase. She hefted the latter, so heavy it may have contained gold bullion, and dragged it to the Jeep.

“I refuse to ride in that bog stomper,” Herbert said. “We’ll take my car.”

Jess’s body soaked into the Jag’s tanned leather upholstery as water into a dry sponge. The sleek European dials and gauges were ringed by bands of polished teak. The odometer read 7.2 kilometers, which she suspected was the distance separating the dealership from Herbert’s hermitage.

She caught the on-ramp at Lake Street and swung onto the QEW. They passed the Henley Regatta, where a solitary sculler plied the calm brown water, and the slopes of St. David’s Bench, where vineyard laborers plucked late-harvest Riesling off the vines. At the city limits they passed a flaking sign that read: Thank You for Visiting St. Catharines, home of Herbert T. Mallory, Jr., The World’s Greatest Magician!, with an illustration of a disembodied hand yanking a rabbit from a top hat.

Herbert said, “Wish someone would burn that damn thing.”

He rummaged through his suitcase, retrieving the pipe Jess had seen jammed in his face during countless media appearances. It was a calabash of a style favored by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s famous detective.

“Why do you smoke that thing?”

“Because I am a sophisticate.” Herbert’s tone suggested Jess wouldn’t recognize sophistication if it crept up and nibbled her bottom.

“It’s a silly affected habit. Not at all you.”

“You have your vices,” Herbert said, “and I mine.”

On the north side of the Hamilton Skyway, Lake Ontario lay flat and emerald against the sun; on the south side, Stelco smokestacks rose in silvery pillars against the blue canvas of sky. Traffic was surprisingly light and they made good time. The Jag whispered along at 110 kph, Jess resting a couple of fingers on the wheel to keep it steady. After navigating through Toronto, Jess unrolled the window an inch or two, breathing the dung-scented air blowing in over the pastures. Herbert’s pipe smelled like a pan of scorched cherries jubilee.

She remembered driving this highway with her father and brother, traveling to a birthday party or bar mitzvah or cottage-country fair. The men sat in the front, her father lecturing Herbert on various tricks and illusions, pointing out the deceptions. She sat in the back. Every so often her dad would reach over the seat, squeeze her knee, and say, “Paying attention, dear?” At those times Jess wished her mother was still alive, or that she had a sister, any buffer between her and the men in the front seat. Her father made no allowance for the possibility she might not want to dedicate her life to magic; his mania was so all-consuming, and he’d found such a willing acolyte in his son, that he found it inconceivable she wouldn’t share his obsession. But even at her tender age, Jess knew a dead-end opportunity when she saw one: what role did women play in magic? Sequin-topped diversions. Eye candy. Her father used her no differently: Just stand off to the side and smile, dear. Let those darling dimples do all the work . Looking back, Jess realized her major life choices were influenced by a desire to surround herself with individuals and institutions the opposite of everything— whimsy, fickleness, fantasy—that magic, and her family, represented.

The highway wound along the eastern shore of Georgian Bay. Glimpsed through clusters of silver maple and Douglas fir stippling the shoreline, the water stretched like a dark curved mirror, interrupted only by a chain of dimensionless islands.

“So,” Jess said, “ever think about getting back into it?”

“What’s that?”

“Magic. The life.”

“Well, if you mean the sort of tricks I made a living off, no.” He opened a window and scattered pipe ashes to the breeze. “I’m interested in real magic.”

“Dad’s book should’ve convinced you there’s no such thing.”

“Not true. Dad believed in true magic. Why do you think he went to such lengths debunking the frauds?”

A sudden trapdoor feeling opened in Jess’s stomach. Here was something else her father had kept hidden away from her. She stared out the window, where a flock of migrating geese kept such perfect pace with the car as to appear frozen in place, pinned like moths to the backdrop of sky.

“There is real magic,” Herbert continued. “A Bedouin mystic sealed in a vault for two years emerges alive and in good health. A Navajo shaman changes into a timber wolf before a gathering of missionaries. A Hindu holy man climbs a rope into the clouds and vanishes. These things happened. Recorded fact. Transformation, telepathy, invisibility—it can be done.”

“Get out of here.”

“I’m serious. Tell me this: have you ever heard of Swami Vindii Lagahoo?”

“We play croquet together on Wednesdays.”

“Aren’t you clever. Lagahoo lived many years ago in Persia, where he was a spiritual counselor of sorts to the prince. Lagahoo was known as a great sorcerer—he lived for 127 years, according to the records of the day—and was credited with many miracles: producing sacred ash from his long sleeves, pulling cancerous tumors through the skin of sick men, levitation, transubstantiation. It’s written that once, at a palace gathering, he sliced open the gut of a suckling pig that had been roasting on a spit in full view of the guests—a dozen doves flew out of the slit! Astounding!”

Jess emitted a low sarcastic whistle.

“His most impressive feat, the one that I’ve been practicing, is making oneself invisible to the naked eye.”

“Come on, Herbert.”

“I’m serious. It’s no trick, just a purely mental skill. A basic matter of will. Lagahoo trained for years and was eventually able to maintain invisibility for hours at a stretch. The whole undertaking drove him crazier than a bedbug.”

“Did you ever consider he was crazy to begin with?”

Jess listened with mounting disbelief as Herbert described how, for the past six months, he’d passed each day in a room of his house, sitting in a cross-legged yoga position on the bare floorboards, teaching himself to become invisible.

“… first, you must block all outside distractions. The basic human sensations of sight, sound, smell, touch—block them out. One must feel nothing in order to experience everything. Focus the mind. Set aside all material thoughts. Concentrate. See nothing— no, see white . Perfect, unending whiteness. Center yourself upon it.”

He nodded to himself. “Yes, it’s possible. I’m living proof.” He added, “Totally self-taught!”

“If you’re doing this by yourself, how can you tell you’ve become invisible?”

Herbert sighed the way a teacher might when faced with a particularly dim-witted student. “I just know, Jess. I can feel it. A disconnection, I guess you’d call it.”

“All I can say is, if some guy walked into the station raving about aged swamis and invisibility, I’d ring up the men with butterfly nets.”

“Shut up.”

“Off to the loony bin he’d go. For his own good.”

“Think I’m nuts, do you? Pull in.” Herbert jabbed his finger at an approaching convenience store. “I’ll goddamn well show you.”

Jess eased off the highway into the lot of Gibson’s Groceteria, parking beneath a sign reading: Utility Turkey—59¢/lb . Herbert shrugged off his jacket and rolled his shirt sleeves to the elbow. “Shut the engine off and be quiet,” he said, unbuttoning the shirt to his navel. “This takes incredible concentration.”

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