The studio is ripe with oily rags, cans of turpentine, and varnish. Dozens of abandoned canvases scaled with paint are stacked against the walls. As he moves about, particles of dust race around him. He thinks that at any moment in the heat of the day the place could combust spontaneously, something he has read about: a flour mill exploding, a coal mine, a silo full of hay. He knows so much about so many things. He is like a sponge, but instead of soaking up water he soaks up turpentine. He is a cinder in the eye of the world. He gets down to his filthy business without delay, then slips out and away, dissolving into the nearby woods as already the fire cooks up its own weather, its own wind.
Within minutes there is much smoke. The place begins to pant like a box containing living things struggling to get out. As the floor swells, pieces of furniture tumble, collide with the window glass and it happens fast; in no time, the entire structure heaves, bleeds smoke, and the flames have reached the second story. A wall falls away and reveals the Devil’s own kitchen — as when Charter was little and lived in the path of a storm.
In the distance a siren sounds. The fire, he thinks, is big enough to overcome his confusion. But it isn’t. It is only adding to it. And then he sees Asthma. He sees her leap from a shattered upstairs window. Briefly suspended, her body twists and falls through the air. Leaves spreading beneath her, she hits the high branches of a tree; she tumbles, shouting, from branch to branch, collapsing into the upper reaches and continuing on down, her little cotton dress trailing sparks until, as sirens scour the air, she is snagged. He hesitates. A girl of blood and bone and marrow. His beloved girl broken. And then, her Rod trailing far behind, he sees Blackie, running barefoot down the hill, her terry robe flapping at her knees, shouting Asthma’s name over and over. She reaches the tree, the tree that is the only place in the world. The tree that grows at the heart of the world. It is uncanny how Blackie scales it as if she has done this a thousand times. She tears away the dress, she gathers Asthma to her heart, the coveted child, the irreplaceable child madly wanted, saying: Sweet child. My own daughter. My dearest beloved. As the fire truck now battles the fire with its mighty powers, an ambulance howls close. There is nothing for him to do but get the hell away and he does, running from the shadows into the deeper woods, the ravine behind, the river beyond, wild in mind with this thing he has done. Asthma. The child who like an angel or bird haunts the high places, the high reaches, and who had come to care for him, to follow him—the risk of this! Why had it not occurred to him? A terrible fear overtakes him like a surge of filthy water and he knows he is not fit to live among the many of his kind.
He follows the deer paths, leaps down the familiar rocks, runs mindless of the thorns that cut his face. He runs until he reaches the river, runs along the banks, the beach, runs until he must stop and catch his breath, the ravens complaining everywhere around him. He falls into something like a stupor, stunned, shattered by the inconceivable, and when he wakes it’s evening. He washes the blood from his face and arms, and moves on for another hour, perhaps two, guided by the moon. He imagines that she, too, is illuminated in this way, that the moon will heal her, oh, the bright cipher of his heart. He runs again until in the distant dark he sees lights twinkling above him, up on a high embankment. A house, its many windows, the light passing through. He climbs the crest of the hill thick with trees and fallen branches, a richly scabbed-over glacial landscape. Then a path, overgrown, takes him to the house, Victorian, softened to a pearly gray, a driveway that ends in a dirt road that in turn leads to a country road, one of many that wander some distance from the highway. The place is isolated and still. Charter walks, limping a little, up the driveway and stands gazing at the house, its fanciful façade and porch. As he stands uncertain in the moonlight, an old man rises up from behind the railing; he has been sitting in a rocker all this time, silent and hidden from view, watching Charter’s approach, his shock of hair startlingly white, his eyes of unparalleled intensity.
“Young man,” he says, “Are you lost?”
“Yes. Lost! Good evening. I apologize. I fear I may have startled you.”
“Where do you need to get to? Come over here! Come into the light.”
Charter approaches.
“You are bleeding—”
Inspired by some divine intuition perhaps, Charter says:
“I was hoping to find someone, a reclusive scholar, Verner Vanderloon. I was accosted in the woods — hobos. .”
“Good god!”
“They robbed me, roughed me up. And I have been running and now I have exhausted myself completely. I fear I am in no shape to be seen.”
“For godsakes,” he says. “And what on earth do you need Vanderloon for?”
“His books! I love his books!”
“Well, you’ve found him.”
“I have?”
“Don’t get carried away,” Vanderloon says gruffly. “Come. Come inside.”
Charter follows him into a beautiful entryway with a long Persian carpet and walls lined with books. He thinks he recognizes a statue from Easter Island, a bird man. As always he notices such things.
“You are badly scratched up,” Vanderloon says. “I have some iodine. Come into the kitchen.” He takes Charter’s elbow and directs him. “So, you like my books. I’d say that is more or less unprecedented.”
“Not in Australia!”
“Tomato soup?” Vanderloon reaches for a familiar can. “I imagine you could use some sustenance.”
“I am hungry.”
“Crackers?”
“Yes. Thank you, sir!”
“Loon. Call me Loon. You will have some soup, take a warm bath — I have some salts — and get a good rest. Would you like to stay the night?”
“Thank you!”
“And in the morning you will tell me just what it is you are wanting.”
~ ~ ~
Coffee House Press began as a small letterpress operation in 1972 and has grown into an internationally renowned nonprofit publisher of literary fiction, essay, poetry, and other work that doesn’t fit neatly into genre categories.
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FUNDER ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Coffee House Press is an internationally renowned independent book publisher and arts nonprofit based in Minneapolis, MN; through its literary publications and Books in Action program, Coffee House acts as a catalyst and connector — between authors and readers, ideas and resources, creativity and community, inspiration and action.
Coffee House Press books are made possible through the generous support of grants and donations from corporate giving programs, state and federal support, family foundations, and the many individuals who believe in the transformational power of literature. This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a Minnesota State Arts Board Operating Support grant, thanks to the legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund and a grant from the Wells Fargo Foundation Minnesota. Coffee House also receives major operating support from the Amazon Literary Partnership, the Bush Foundation, the Jerome Foundation, the McKnight Foundation, Target, and the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). To find out more about how nea grants impact individuals and communities, visit www.arts.gov.