Where We Live and Die Read online

  Because that’s how the muse gets fed.

  In U2’s “The Fly,” Bono sings that every poet is a cannibal and every artist is a thief. They all kill their inspiration and then sing about the grief. Until last Saturday night, I believed this to be true.

  I know better now.

  It’s not the artist who kills their inspiration.

  It’s the inspiration that kills the artist.

  * * *

  The coffee had finished brewing but my brain and body were still sore. Worse, loneliness and isolation were still weighing on me. I could have reached out to someone. I could have called my girlfriend, or any of the other people I truly trust—a group whose members sadly dwindle with each passing year. But doing so would have alleviated my melancholy, and I needed that melancholy to write. Yeah, talk about job security. “Continue to feel bad so you’ll write better.”

  So instead of reaching out and touching someone, I decided to extend my break and go for a walk. I live in a remote section of rural South-Central Pennsylvania, down in the bottoms of the Susquehanna River, an area so backwoods that it makes the rest of the county look positively metropolitan in comparison. I like it that way. I like seeing greenery and wildlife outside my window. I like having no traffic zipping by all day or noisy neighbors or sidewalks or a convenience store or bar within walking—or even driving—distance.

  I put on my jacket and grabbed my walking stick—a sturdy length of oak that had originally belonged to my grandfather, faded now and worn smooth by his hands and mine. I miss my grandfather. He passed several years ago. Using that stick always makes me think of him. Worse, it always makes me wonder if he was ever proud of what I’d accomplished as a writer or if, like the rest of my family, he quietly (and sometimes openly in the case of a few family members) wished I’d give up this writing thing and get a proper job again. Something else I missed when I went for a walk was my dog. Writing had cost me him, too, in a way—lost in that second, amicable divorce. Oh, I still saw him on an almost daily basis, and he was always happy to see me, wagging his tail and grinning that dog grin that hounds do so well. But it wasn’t the same. Gone were the days when I’d write for fifteen hours with him lying at my feet, patiently waiting for me to finish so we could go for a walk and decompress before rejoining the rest of the world, already in progress. These days, he lives with my second ex-wife, and her boyfriend is the one taking him for walks, and I write alone.

  I walk alone, too.

  I pulled a cigar from my humidor, clipped it, lit it, and headed out the door, clutching the walking stick and feeling the weight of my thoughts. I’m not supposed to smoke cigars anymore, especially after my heart attack. Wrath James White, F. Paul Wilson, and Joe Lansdale have all threatened to kick my ass if I continue, so if you read this, don’t tell them I was. It will be our little secret.

  Anyway, I walked down to the river. The weather suited my mood. It was that weird time of day—not quite nightfall but not the end of daylight, either. The overcast sky was colored with muted shades of gray and white, and a persistent breeze rustled the leaves on the trees, knocking them to the ground in a cascade of reds, oranges, and yellows. Nice weather for hunters, Goths, moody horror writers, and malcontents, but other folks probably prefer spring or summer. The river was deserted. When it’s warmer outside, the waterway is packed with boats—blue-collar guys out fishing in aluminum bass boats, rich yuppies up from Maryland for the day in their obscene pleasure boats, and thrill-seekers on Jet Skis. The river banks were usually packed, as well, with family picnics and folks feeding the ducks. But they’d all gone home for the season, and the ducks had flown south, and on the day they’d left, I’d wished I could go with them.

  There was one lone car in the parking area—a blue Mazda with a Penn State bumper sticker on the back, and some additional stickers for bands I had never heard of, because I am in my forties now and stopped listening to new music right around the time that hip-hop got turned into hit-pop and Kurt Cobain did us the disservice of killing heavy metal before killing himself. Far away, down near the chain link fence that sealed off the gravel service road for the Safe Harbor Dam, I saw three college-aged girls, and assumed the car belonged to them. They were too far away to notice anything else about them, so I turned my attention back to the river. I stood there, hands in pockets, smoking and thinking, and gearing myself up to go back home and write some more. As I watched, the sun slipped beneath the horizon, and blue gave way to black.

  I stood there until my cigar was finished. Then I tossed the stub into the water and turned to leave. As I did, I noticed the three girls approaching. They were close enough now that I was able to get a better look at them, and what I saw left me stunned. I don’t know if it was the fact that I’m now middle-aged or the loneliness I’d been feeling prior, but I absolutely could not take my gaze away from them. They appeared to be twenty, maybe twenty-one. The first was blonde with blue eyes. The second had dark hair and even darker skin. The third girl was a brunette. Their nationalities were hard to pin. I saw hints of Caucasian, African, Asian, Indian, and more—an exotic mix of genetics and heredity that suggested the entire world had been distilled into these three beauties. They reminded me of pop princesses—or barely legal porn starlets—and at that moment, I felt very old and very ashamed, and I’m not sure why.

  I nodded hello and turned away, determined not to be the creepy middle-aged guy I felt like, when the blonde disarmed me with a smile and a question.

  “Working on a new book?”

  I’m used to getting recognized, especially near my home. No, I never had to deal with the level of notoriety Stephen King did after filming that credit card commercial, but I’ve got enough of an Internet presence that I’m easily identifiable. It’s a given this happens at conventions or signings, but I’ve also encountered it occasionally in airports, the grocery store, at movie theatres, and once in a bathroom at an Amtrak station. And as I said, it happens fairly regularly in my hometown (local boy made good, and all that). So it wasn’t the girl’s question that threw me, nor was it the fact that she apparently knew who I was. What left me flummoxed was the sensation that I knew these girls from somewhere. I’d never signed a book for them. Of that, I was certain. I’m good with faces, and if you’ve stood in line to get my signature, chances are I’ll remember your face, if not your name. I was certain that our paths hadn’t crossed in that way, but the instant connection I felt with them was so strong that it left me feeling nervous and dizzy.

  All three stood there staring at me, smiling, and I realized that I hadn’t responded.

  “Taking a break from one, actually.” I tried to smile, but it probably looked like I was having a seizure. Whatever my expression, it was apparently amusing, because all three giggled softly. Their laughter was like music. I felt my body begin to thrum.

  What the hell is wrong with me? I thought. I felt like a character out of one of my books. You know the one where the Satyr comes back to life and everyone is running around with a hard-on? It was like that, except that this was real life, and the sensations coursing through me weren’t just sexual. Don’t get me wrong. Lust—or maybe longing—was a definite component. But it was something more than that. It was…need. On a primal, spiritual level. I didn’t understand it, but that didn’t stop me from feeling it. Even though I didn’t know why, I felt that I needed these women.

  We made small talk for a while. The girls had a slight, almost unrecognizable accent that I couldn’t place. I don’t remember everything that was said. I started out with my public patter, accessing the stores of anecdotes and witty responses I keep for any occasion when I’m talking with fans, but soon enough, I found myself relaxing, and becoming the real me. The girls must have noticed this, too. They didn’t tell me their names, and I didn’t think to ask, so flustered and confused was I, puzzling over my own behavior. I remember asking if they went to school around here, thinking they had to be from Penn State or York College. It turned out they didn�
��t, although they had plans to visit the Penn State campus the next day. When I told them my son was enrolled there, they smiled again. When I asked why they were planning to visit the campus, the brunette told me they were from Boeotia, and were just traveling. I’d never heard of Boeotia, but didn’t mention it because I didn’t want to seem rude. When I asked what brought them to the river bottoms of York County, they told me I had. They were fans, and they’d known I lived nearby, and they’d wanted to see me.

  We talked a while longer, and when the moon and the stars finally peeked out from behind the cloud cover, the temperature dropped. Shivering inside my leather jacket, I told them I had to be getting home. They offered me a ride back, and I accepted. I’m still not sure why. I’m not one to let the public know the exact whereabouts of my home. I use a PO Box and don’t allow friends to post pictures taken outside my home on Facebook. Hell, I’m so concerned with privacy, that I don’t even mention either of my son’s names in public. And yet, quite uncharacteristically, I was allowing these three girls to give me a lift back to my front door.

  And when we got there, I let them come inside.

  One trip to my liquor cabinet later, and the booze, conversation, and laughter were flowing freely. They admired my bookshelves, which made me happy. They exclaimed over first edition Peter Straub books and rare volumes by M.R. James and Edward Lee. My signed copy of Arthur Machen’s Strange Roads elicited a smile from all three, and when I asked them if they were familiar with his work, the brunette said, “Oh, yes. We knew him.” I was buzzed enough that I let the odd response slip by, assuming she meant they knew of his work, even in far-off Boeotia. They’d probably read The Great God Pan in high school or something. The girls seemed particularly interested in my books by Hunter S. Thompson, Robert E. Howard, Karl Edward Wagner, Ernest Hemingway, Edward Lucas White, Edgar Allan Poe, and other writers who’d had notoriously rough lives and even rougher endings. The three seemed well-versed and knowledgeable in their works—something that amazed me at the time. It’s not often you meet three college-aged beauties with whom you can discuss what makes Wagner’s “Sticks” the most effective horror short story ever, or the stark, fearful sub-text of Thompson’s post-9/11 “Where Were You When the Fun Stopped?”

  I was well into my second bottle of bourbon and the girls were working their way through my tequila, having finished off the last of my Sambuca (a gift from my girlfriend), when we ended up collapsing onto the bed together. Looking back, I had no misgivings about this. It never occurred to me that it was inappropriate. It seemed like the most natural thing in the world. I felt safe. Secure. That feeling continued as I poured my heart out to them, telling them things the rest of the world didn’t know, things I’ve never even told my friends, truths about myself that have only been told as lies in my fiction. And I was still feeling safe and secure when they retrieved four of my ties from the closet and secured my wrists and ankles to the bedposts. Then they went to work on me with lips and tongues and fingertips, and only once did I resist—a half-hearted protest that dissipated almost before leaving my mouth.

  As they swarmed over me, soft hair grazing my skin, raising goose bumps with its passage, they whispered and murmured the truth to me. They told me how my writing was for shit these days, and how I needed to experience pain once again. They spoke of how my best works, the books for which I’m known, stemmed from turmoil and heartache—the death of a loved one, the dissolution of a marriage, the loss of a child, struggles with substance abuse and depression. Those things fed and informed my fiction, and I needed to return to those things once again. They teased that I’d grown fat and old and bald and content, and my current output was a reflection of that. I needed to be hungry again. I needed to hurt again.

  Their words changed, as did their faces. It felt like I was viewing them from the end of a long, spiraling tunnel. I passed out with their bodies as blankets, and the voices ceased.

  When I woke today, my head was numb and my mouth tasted like the inside of a gorilla’s stomach. My first sensation, before even opening my eyes, was an overwhelming sense of guilt. I’d cheated on my girlfriend. I’d callously betrayed her trust for a drunken tryst that I couldn’t even remember clearly. Just what had happened anyway? The ties were gone and my limbs were free. I remembered skin and hair and softness. Security. Had I cried at some point? I think I had, but couldn’t remember why.

  Glancing at the clock, I was stunned to see that it was late evening. I’d nearly slept the entire day. I sat up, groaning at the stiffness in my limbs. The girls weren’t in the bedroom, and the house was quiet, so I assumed they were gone.

  I was partially right.

  I stumbled downstairs to make some coffee, and found my laptop open on the dining room table. The screen glowed softly. My cell phone lay next to it. I picked up the phone first, checking to see if I’d missed any calls or texts, and was alarmed to see several texts sent to my girlfriend from my phone sometime after I’d passed out. I clicked on the texts and groaned. Somebody had taken pictures of me and my visitors, and judging by the fact that each picture showed me and two of the girls, but a different combo in each shot, it had to have been them. Worse, they’d then texted these pictures to my girlfriend—who was either still asleep and hadn’t gotten them yet, or was so distraught that she hadn’t even been capable of responding.

  Panicked, I collapsed into a chair and reached for my laptop. I had some vague, terror-driven notion of Googling a way to delete texts that had already been sent, but before I could do that, I saw an open Word document on my screen. It repeated what they’d whispered the night before, of how I needed to hurt again, and of the new works that would spring forth from that pain. The note was signed with love from Melete, Mneme, and Aoide.

  I knew those names. They were the names of the three Muses worshipped in ancient times on Mount Helicon in…

  …in Boeotia.

  “Fuck you!”

  The words fell flat in my empty kitchen. I’d meant to shout them, but all I managed to do was croak. I sat there, crying and cursing and pounding my fist against the table. All three gestures were ineffective. Then, stomach churning, I dashed for the bathroom, barely making it in time before the sourness of the previous night’s libations ended up in the toilet. I knelt there, gasping and sweating and puking some more, and almost passed out again. I heard my phone ringing, but was in no condition to answer it. Eventually, when the tremors had subsided, I crawled to the sink, pulled myself upright, and splashed water on my face. I stared into the mirror and cringed at what I saw staring back at me.

  My phone dinged, alerting me that I had a voice mail. I returned to the kitchen and reached for the phone with trepidation, expecting it to be my girlfriend. Instead, it was my oldest son. I held the phone to my ear and listened to his message. It sounded like he was calling me from a frat party, judging by the noise in the background. Amidst the white noise, I heard lilting female laughter—and almost screamed at the sound.

  “You’ll never guess what happened to me,” my son was saying. “I’m at this party on campus and I met these three girls. They’re fans of your work. I’m heading back to my place with them now. They’re totally fucking hot. I’m turning my phone off so we don’t get interrupted. You know what I mean. Anyway, just wanted to say thanks, Dad!”

  I called him back, but got no answer. I called both of my ex-wives but there was no answer from them, either. Nor my girlfriend. Nor my family members.

  I was alone again. Truly alone. Just me and my laptop.

  It occurred to me that I should call the police, both locally and on campus. Have them check on the status of my loved ones. Make sure they were safe. Give them a description of the three women. I’d have to be careful not to sound like a madman. I couldn’t very well say that these women were serial killers. That they murdered for their host’s inspiration, killing everything good in the artist’s life until there was nothing left. That they might be going by the aliases of Melete, Mneme, and Aoi
de, but that they had other aliases, as well, like Nete, Mese, and Hypate, or Cephisso, Apollonis, and Borysthenis. They’d lock me up if I said these women had killed Poe and Thompson and Hemingway and so many others. No. Instead I’d just tell the authorities that these were three disturbed fans of my work, and that I had strong reason to believe that my loved ones were in danger.

  And that’s what I intended to do.

  But it was important that I write this first.

  I’ll make those calls soon.

  I just need to write another thousand words or so before I do. I haven’t been this productive in a while…

  I shit gold.

  It started around the time I hit puberty. I thought there was something wrong with me. Cancer or parasites or something like that, because when I looked down into the bowl, a golden turd was sitting on the bottom. When I wiped, there were gold stains on the toilet paper. Then I flushed and went back to watching cartoons. Ten minutes later, I’d forgotten all about it.

  You know how kids are.

  But it wasn’t just my shit. I pissed gold. (No golden showers jokes, please. I’ve heard them all before.) I started sweating gold. It oozed out of my pores in droplets, drying on my skin in flakes. It peeled off easily enough. Just like dead skin after a bad case of sunburn. Then my spit and mucous started turning into gold. I’d hock gold nuggets onto the sidewalk. One day, I was picking mulberries from a tree in a pasture. There was a barbed-wire fence beneath the tree, and to reach the higher branches, I stood on the fence. I lost my balance and the barbed-wire took three big chunks out of the back of my thigh. My blood was liquid gold. And like I said, this was around puberty, so you can only imagine what my wet dreams were like. Many nights, instead of waking up wet and sticky, I woke up with a hard, metallic mess on my sheets and in my pajamas.