loud every November 11 at the Remembrance Day assemblies at their schools. They’ll drink and then they’ll drink some more and imagine themselves shot, gnawed and buried, nothing left but living ghosts who might come home to hear their names mispronounced by a bunch of kids who aren’t theirs.
After the final New Year’s bash, the Richardsons moved out of the old mansion into the new house Luke had built by the lake. Then following the instructions of his great-great-grandfather’s will, Luke turned it into the West Gull R&R, a monumental sarcophagus for the living where those who once danced became paying guests, music provided by an orchestra of pocked leathery lungs wheezing towards the millenniumaccompanied by a chorus of drug-induced gurgles, moans and muffled cries from dreams of long-ago childhoods, memory buried deep in hairless skulls, mutating cells, dreams of nights when the forest held them and their skins were young and the cries they made were not desperate calls to a mouldy time now disintegrating in the soft cheese of their decaying brains, but cries and prayers to the gods of summer and desire.
Two of those lungs belonged to William McKelvey. Back from his big splash, the very picture of self-satisfaction and serenity, McKelvey sat on the porch of the West Gull R&R smoking a cigarette and staring into his newspaper. Everything on the street seemed frozen in place: the crystal sky, the massed leaves, the big mansions with their yellowing sheers tied open to the afternoon sun. As Carl approached, McKelvey struggled to his feet and started to speak before interrupting himself to cough. His hand rose to his mouth, the back thick with brown stains.
You are old, Father William
. “How’s the boy?”
“Not bad,” Carl said. “How are you?”
For an answer McKelvey spread out his arms so he could be inspected, then indicated that Carl should sit down in the chair beside him. “So. You’re back.”
“I’m back.”
“Visit the kid?”
“Saw her this morning. She’s grown. She says she comes to see you.”
“Christine brings her.”
Christine
. Once he’d called about Lizzie and she’d had to call him back. An hour later someone had shouted out to him, “Hey Carl, there’s a
Christine
on the phone for you.” And his heart had started to race as though it were ten years before andChrissy was going to talk in that hoarse little whisper she had when they were arranging to spend the night catting.
“How long you staying?”
“For a while,” Carl said. “Luke Richardson rented me the old Balfer place.”
“What about the old McKelvey place?” his father said. “He’s got his sign out front. Made me want to puke. They covered it in metal and now it looks like a white cookie tin waiting to be squashed.”
His eyes were closed. The way they’d been the night Carl told him it was over with Chrissy. When his eyes had opened again, he’d started shouting that Carl was cursed like every McKelvey—cursed to drink and fight and lose or kill his woman and Carl should be thankful at least that he’d had a daughter and not a son.
Now William McKelvey put his newspaper down and reached into his fishing vest for a package of cigarettes. His hands were shaking.
“Liver,” McKelvey said. “Liver, kidneys, pancreas, stomach, gall bladder—the whole thing.” He squeezed the package open, managed to extract a cigarette and get it into his mouth. “Like it’s one big septic tank in there, right? Pour shit in one end, clean water flows out the other.” He reached into another of his pockets, found a Zippo, flipped it open and watched the flame dance while his hand trembled. “Then it gets plugged up, right? Doesn’t work any more. Put shit in one end, shit comes out the other. Or alcohol. You’re supposed to wake up the next morning sober. I wake up like this, only worse. Takes two weeks before I can walk a straight line.”
“You lost the habit,” Carl said. “Good thing or
After the final New Year’s bash, the Richardsons moved out of the old mansion into the new house Luke had built by the lake. Then following the instructions of his great-great-grandfather’s will, Luke turned it into the West Gull R&R, a monumental sarcophagus for the living where those who once danced became paying guests, music provided by an orchestra of pocked leathery lungs wheezing towards the millenniumaccompanied by a chorus of drug-induced gurgles, moans and muffled cries from dreams of long-ago childhoods, memory buried deep in hairless skulls, mutating cells, dreams of nights when the forest held them and their skins were young and the cries they made were not desperate calls to a mouldy time now disintegrating in the soft cheese of their decaying brains, but cries and prayers to the gods of summer and desire.
Two of those lungs belonged to William McKelvey. Back from his big splash, the very picture of self-satisfaction and serenity, McKelvey sat on the porch of the West Gull R&R smoking a cigarette and staring into his newspaper. Everything on the street seemed frozen in place: the crystal sky, the massed leaves, the big mansions with their yellowing sheers tied open to the afternoon sun. As Carl approached, McKelvey struggled to his feet and started to speak before interrupting himself to cough. His hand rose to his mouth, the back thick with brown stains.
You are old, Father William
. “How’s the boy?”
“Not bad,” Carl said. “How are you?”
For an answer McKelvey spread out his arms so he could be inspected, then indicated that Carl should sit down in the chair beside him. “So. You’re back.”
“I’m back.”
“Visit the kid?”
“Saw her this morning. She’s grown. She says she comes to see you.”
“Christine brings her.”
Christine
. Once he’d called about Lizzie and she’d had to call him back. An hour later someone had shouted out to him, “Hey Carl, there’s a
Christine
on the phone for you.” And his heart had started to race as though it were ten years before andChrissy was going to talk in that hoarse little whisper she had when they were arranging to spend the night catting.
“How long you staying?”
“For a while,” Carl said. “Luke Richardson rented me the old Balfer place.”
“What about the old McKelvey place?” his father said. “He’s got his sign out front. Made me want to puke. They covered it in metal and now it looks like a white cookie tin waiting to be squashed.”
His eyes were closed. The way they’d been the night Carl told him it was over with Chrissy. When his eyes had opened again, he’d started shouting that Carl was cursed like every McKelvey—cursed to drink and fight and lose or kill his woman and Carl should be thankful at least that he’d had a daughter and not a son.
Now William McKelvey put his newspaper down and reached into his fishing vest for a package of cigarettes. His hands were shaking.
“Liver,” McKelvey said. “Liver, kidneys, pancreas, stomach, gall bladder—the whole thing.” He squeezed the package open, managed to extract a cigarette and get it into his mouth. “Like it’s one big septic tank in there, right? Pour shit in one end, clean water flows out the other.” He reached into another of his pockets, found a Zippo, flipped it open and watched the flame dance while his hand trembled. “Then it gets plugged up, right? Doesn’t work any more. Put shit in one end, shit comes out the other. Or alcohol. You’re supposed to wake up the next morning sober. I wake up like this, only worse. Takes two weeks before I can walk a straight line.”
“You lost the habit,” Carl said. “Good thing or
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