Rudolph Wurlitzer - Slow Fade

“It’s my film and it’s not carte blanche.”

“We can iron all this out later,” Sidney said. He put down his camera and began to change film. “We’ve been getting the crowd ready for you. Most people don’t know what the hell you’ve been up to all these years. But now that we told them you were bringing in the TV satellite they’re crazy about you. You’re the lord of TV, the holy messenger bringing the outside inside. We’ve laid out three cases of booze for a party tonight in your honor.”

Before Wesley could object, a florid-faced man in a Sears, Roebuck hunting jacket shouldered his way through the crowd and shook his hand. “I’m Pagels, the Hudson Bay man. One of your producers just now filled me in on the film you’re doing and how it ties in with the TV and all the benefits that will be coming our way. Wesley Hardin, I just want to say for all of us that you being back on the Slab is the best thing that ever happened, and we’re putting on a big Welcome Home to prove it.”

Long poked Wesley in the stomach. “I seen all this coming years ago. I been second-sighted all this time, but you’re the one that’s lit the fuse.”

He took Wesley by the arm and guided him through town to the Hudson Bay Post. Rum and Scotch and beer were lined up on the counter and there was already a large crowd inside, with the rest of Tilt Cove coming in behind them.

“I been down this road, too,” Long muttered.

He took a bottle of rum and went over with Wesley to sit by Annie Mae, who was propped up on a pile of feed sacks on the other side of the cavernous room. The movie people were interviewing old-timers on what they remembered of Wesley and picking up background shots. Wesley watched them maneuver toward him, the camera panning over to include him.

“How do you feel about being home after all these years?” A.D. asked, shoving a microphone in front of him.

Long answered for him. “He don’t feel a goddamn thing. Can’t you people see he’s already got one foot in the misty beyond?”

“In that case,” A.D. asked Wesley matter-of-factly, “what are your last words?”

Wesley turned away, experiencing underneath one of his many blankets of humiliation a ludicrous little tug of joy. Meanwhile the rest of the party was gaining momentum. An old Indian was tackled from behind as he tried to stagger outside with a hundred-pound bag of flour. Inuit and Indian children threw food at each other while Pagels and his wife tried to secure as many canned goods as they could before they disappeared off the shelves. The crowd applauded each antic, word having gotten around that the tab was on Wesley and the TV people. Someone turned a radio all the way up, John and Yoko singing “Every Man Has a Woman Who Loves Him,” and no one paid much attention when a large fat woman fell through a window.

Suddenly, unexpectedly, Wesley passed out. A few hours later he awoke to find only half as many people present, but they were there for the duration. The kids had gone and it was quieter, with more steady drinking going on. A few people had already passed out on the floor and a fight had broken up a display counter, but the Hudson Bay man and his wife had managed to protect most of their goods, sitting up on the counter near the cash register with shotguns cradled in their arms. The camera crew was shooting from the floor at an old man climbing up on a stove by way of a wheelbarrow and a water pump. He wore greasy bib overalls, rubber boots, and a snap-brim leather cap. His long block of a face was bitter and sad and no one listened except the sound man as he stared out across the room and spoke his piece:

“I’ll say this about Wesley Hardin. I knowed him them days, never since, but I was one of the first to see him go astray. We was twenty years old and working as oil rats down in the whale factory at Poke Harbour. We was boiling out the oil from whale in twelve-hour shifts and making good money, too. We worked all that summer and into the fall and then we went over to Newfoundland, figuring to trap all winter and come back on the spring thaw. It was the first time either one of us had been that far away and we was raw about it but we knew what we was doing. We portaged in a hundred miles, carrying two canoes and four months of food. Built a first little tilt for me and then Wesley went on forty miles with the idea we’d meet up after a few months. As soon as I had put out my traps I noticed Wesley took damn near all the sugar with him. You understand what I’m saying? Anyways, I lit out after him. Damn right. Walked three days to get to his place. When I come into his tilt mad as a teased snake, he was laying on his bunk and you could see right away he wasn’t right. He didn’t even look at me. He just lay there staring at the ceiling. The whole place was a mess. Mice and coons were all over the place. He had him a nice little stove of galvanized metal and there was a terrible backdraft and he hadn’t bothered to fix it. It’s a wonder he didn’t freeze. I fixed the place up for him and all the time he didn’t say a damn word. Not that I wanted him to. When I finished I asked him was he going to set his traps. He says: ‘Lemuel, I’m going to go as far from here as possible.’ And I says: ‘Wesley, you’re already as far away as possible.’ Then I walked out, but not before I took all the sugar and a few other doodads as well. I figured he wouldn’t be needing them. I took the man at his word. He said he was going on and I let him go. As for me, I took most of his clothes, rifles, ax, and a sack full of food. That was the last I heard or seen of Wesley Hardin until he showed up just now looking the same as when I seen him last. So I say: Howdy, Wesley. How you be, old son?”

Lemuel waved to Wesley and fell off the stove, twisting his leg but not enough to keep him from limping over to the counter for a drink.

A shrunken white-haired woman in an old army coat stood up on the counter near the cash register, clearing her voice and speaking out in a loud voice: “Now I knowed Wesley Hardin and the others, too. Coley Hardin and Dan Louis Hardin most of all. I recollect the winter of ’thirty-two. The Spanish flu was on and it was down to lean pickings or none. We was living with the Hardins that winter in the Macy house. All three of us families was there and it was some hard. . ”

Her voice faded and the party seemed to lose momentum only to pick up again with the arrival of three young trappers all loudly drunk and shouting for the secession of Labrador from Canada and the entire Commonwealth.

Wesley stood up looking for a way out but was intercepted by Sidney and A.D. Once again A.D. presented a microphone to Wesley and once again it was rejected.

“A message from Walker taped last night,” A.D. said, his voice strangely hollow and subdued.

Wesley received the statement as if it were a physical blow and sagged against a sack of feed. A.D. hesitated and turned off the tape recorder, but Sidney stopped him, turning it on again and then moving in with the camera for a close-up on Wesley’s reaction.

“. . It’s two-thirty a.m. and I’m sitting in the Sherry Netherland with Evelyn and your home movie crew. I’ll take part of the responsibility for A.D., but Sidney is your contribution to the culture. I’m wired and stoned and distraught to know that, once again, you’ve disappeared. But I’m not going to Slab Island. That’s for sure. I can’t speak for Evelyn. She’s taking a bath. I’m sliding along a raw edge right now and it makes me want to give you more information than you asked for. Such as: I spent the night in Montauk with Evelyn. It was very sweet and we both needed each other and I, for one, don’t have any regrets. I’m sure she won’t reveal any of this, as protecting you seems to be an obsession with her. But you’re bound to get the news when they screen all their demented footage for you. Although that night might never happen the way these guys are shooting. They remind me of that lame comedy team you used for the killers in Baby Legs. Totally inept and perverse. If I were you I’d take all the footage away from these goons as soon as possible. They seem to think that violation means reality, but then who are we to say no to that? In fact we’ve said yes all along. But why am I saying all this? Why is it still so important for me to communicate with you when you have never met me halfway, never once? And why do I bother to tell you that I made love with your wife and that it’s okay and we’re not going to run off with each other? Perhaps because it was your choice not to be here when I arrived, not to receive the final information about Clementine, and to leave me staring into a camera, which, I admit, I consented to do. So I say: You want to know what I’m up to? How I can serve you in terms of a story? What my back story is and how you can transfer your children into one-dimensional images? Fine. Here it is. And here’s the story about Clementine. Then our deal will be over and I’d appreciate a check as soon as possible care of the Sherry Netherland, which is where I’ll be until I figure out my next move, which I suspect might be back to Albany en route to who knows and who cares where. . Wait. Here’s Evelyn. She’s out of the bath and wants to say something. . ”