The Story of the Indian Chief and the Farmer's Daughter

By Doug Pinkston



I

            When Edwin Franks typed out on his page: THE LIGHTNING BOLT TOOK MEL WINSLOW BY COMPLETE SURPRISE he had no idea such a thing might  happen. He had typed out the line in disgust, moments after a heated phone conversation with his editor. It was more of the dogma: "Forget the last chapter, we need words!"; an attitude Mel Winslow believed obvious, as if the ideas were self-evident. "Give them words," he'd  say, puffing on his pipe, long white hair combed straight back. "Give us the work. We'll clean it up. Bingo! You can relax, play golf." Edwin Franks bit his teeth to hold in his reaction. "It's coming,"

he said, finally, "if you can just be patient. It's difficult to be honest with these strictures. You'll see the manuscript very quickly, Ok?" Mel Winslow stammered and Edwin Franks hung up. That was when he typed out the phrase.Perhaps Mel Winslow was right. But like nearly every idea Mel Winslow called Edwin Franks down on, the matter of accuracy was eclipsedby the simple moral substance. Edwin Franks had became an author by burying himself in the tradition of English letters. There was a duty in each sentence a writer drafted, he believed, and this commissioned a firm grip on his conscience, making Mel Winslow's remarks land likea spider on the near side of unbearable. It was not that he was a coward,unable to make his stand endure. At first inspection he appeared a man of considerable physical strength, with broad shoulders and a thick neck. He was a man you'd guess had played football in school, or was a wrestler. He could hold out for his rights when he felt in his bonesit was the proper thing to do. He could talk a salesperson into submission, convince a mean dog to cower into retreat with a viscious stare. Women, as a rule, found him attractive, with a sharp chin and deep blue eyes as steely and full as a cat's eyes.        Yet with Mel Winslow he was on a road with a bridge out. His choices were limited and predictable: turn away or do it as told. It was not, as Edwin Franks saw things, a truly unique situation. If the most of men's lives could be broken down and set into decipherable formulas you'd find pretty much the same stern choices, regardless of the circumstances. That conclusion offered him, at times (when he was not cursing his editor violently, or dead drunk on gin), a degree of solace. To survive we had to commit ourselves to tasks dictated by powers higher than ourselves. The same as wild animals burrow to avoid snakes, reacting to their own dangers. There existed little room for experiments under such designs, so one might as well listen closely on the first set of instructions. Edwin Franks had thought all this out. The idea of happiness and/or satisfaction

could not be manipulated through such elementary effects as power and money, or overcoming restrictive boundaries. You tear down a fence, you'll be obliged to start work on another one, and likely as not it'll have more posts and cover more hazardous territory. Thus it was indeed strange when Edwin Franks first heard the news about Mel Winslow.     Jim Spinks had called him the next morning, awakening him to a hangover rolling in his brain like broken glass. When Edwin Franks first heard the account, Jim Spinks talking----as he always did -- a mile a minute, he'd felt sure he'd misheard the entire report, that the phone connection had warbled the relay into only an impression that there was something about Mel Winslow and lightning, a perversion of some sort, a pun. But even with that assurance Edwin Franks had felt a bolt of heat run up his back as he sat up slowly in his bed, the phone clamped tightly to his ear, a hand on his whiskered cheek, trying to gain his bearings. "Wait a minute," he'd said, looking at the clock by the lamp. (It was 10:40). "Slow down." He took a breath. "You're not. . . No, wait a minute. It's not. . . You mean Mel Winslow was struck by lightning?" Jim Spinks came back without hesitation. "Exactly! He was walking to his car when all of a sudden up comes a thunderstorm and BOOM! Cooked him like a Christmas goose. Had his keys in his hand." The image, as Edwin Franks listened closely on this account, gathering in distinctly what Jim Spink's described, had all the makings of tragic comedy: his jowl-faced, bald editor, fried in a parking lot, keys clenched in his hand like a Ben Franklin clone who'd overlooked an important element in an experiment (the kite, of course). But it was not, then, to Edwin Franks, comical in the least, for he could see, laying across the floor, if he squinted and got his eyes to focus, the same page on which he'd typed out the eerie divination on the night previous. Staring straight ahead, the phone resting against his face, Edwin Franks' eyes turned blank as old bed sheets. He spoke, finally, swallowing, "It's a wierd thing alright. Well," he paused. "We'll talk later then. I'm stunned, that's all." Jim Spinks had no more news to relate. He promised future updates on the situation and closed the line.

            Edwin Franks dropped the reciever back into place quickly, as if he were releasing an old dug-up bone. He threw his covers to the side and without pausing for his slippers or robe he walked to his desk and knelt beside it, looking through the papers crumbled and discarded on the floor. He first found the beginning of chapter five: The fifth floor of the executive building wa so…          

He had stopped there, begun again. He found an outline, chapter four; since retyped. He found a page with half a paragraph, something about the character's strange manner of holding a drink and then, about halfway down the page, in large typeface, sat the prophetic phrase, as clear and concise as, well, as an epigram from Poor Richard's Almanac. He stared at it like it was a figure from the grave, the words standing out before him like items in a dream when one knows one is dreaming. Yet he was calm. On the whole he was not a superstitious man. He knew enough about science, having dabbled some in minor physics and natural science, to know that cracked mirrors were just eye sores; black cats, though perhaps bothersome critters, were no more omens than insurance salesmen; and such things as ESP and ghosts, though they might well excite the general public, as one of his own well told novels might, were only tricks to make a dollar, or lucky guesses. "Sheeeez," he said to himself, slowly, smirking, letting the paper fall from his hands, then, for some reason, reaching for it and placing it on his desk (as if it were a citation, an award). "Sheeeez." Who'd have thought? 'Ole Eddie, you're gonna have to start getting more sleep.' He shook his head, wondering who the new editor would be. He turned back to his bed, fell in it and in moments was  sleeping like a baby.

 

 

II

 

When Edwin Franks awoke, shortly after noon, with his headache slept away and his mouth as dry as a pound of cotton swabs, he was immediately caught up in a battle to forget all about Mel Winslow . . . or . . not so much Mel Winslow---- since even under the circumstances he could not help but feel a degree of consolation in his wretched overseer's demise----but there were other thoughts he battled to dismiss, all pertaining to the praeternatural note sitting on his desk. As he moved to the kitchen, making coffee, scrambling some eggs, his head was almost physically jerking here and there between thoughts habitual (he needed to fix the perculator cord; pick up type samples at the post office), and thoughts absurd: with a single sentence on his typewriter he had written a man's life out of existence. (Much as he might write a character out of a plot.) He fought back the delusive connection the paper on his desk suggested, like he would fight back sleep edging in on him while sitting at the typewriter deep into anarresting chapter. But there wasan essential discrepancy between the two feelings, and it was this: sleep came on a person quietly, peacefully, like sails let down in still air. Edwin Franks' troubling stir was far from quiet.

            It had the force of a maelstrom,threatening to engulf him in an impossible tidal wave. The emotion was not unlike the odd desire which occasionally strikes people on bridges, or construction workers high above the city streets: the urge to jump to exhilarating and final consumption.

            Outside his house the day was hot, as it had been for several weeks and, if the weatherman could be believed, was to remain so for some time yet. His house, the house in which he did nearly all of his writing,. was located near Piper City, Illinois, south of Chicago about 70 miles. Why he found it ebullient to seclude himself in a rural, farming area, far from the rushes of modern culture, was a question for which he had no sure answer. He scoffed at friends who would prod him from their Chicago apartments and condomimiums, attending indulgent party after indulgent  party (strewn, as always, with beautiful and witless blondes), while he sat alone in his two-story house with only the crickets, an occasional hare crossing his lawn from the corn field adjacent, and his typewriter. Somehow it worked for him. The farms were open, honest. It was easy to clear his mind, dissolve himself totally in the task at hand. But something had changed. After finishing his breakfast and thumbing through yesterday's Tribune, he made his way upstairs to the typewriterin his bedroom. He rolled his chair up to the machine, turned it on and then sat before it, stock-still, like he had been stuffed with dried beans. He looked through the last chapter, trying to work his way into the ideas, recollect the flow, but nothing would come. Mel Winslow's death kept recurring, the mere page itself enough to bring back the chilling memory. He looked down at the keys, at the letter impressions. He rolled the carbon, put his fingers over the rounded surface of the plastic like he were preparing to punch out an imprint of his soul,but still, nothing came. If he could just get something going he knew the story line would fallinto place (type gibberish even, he thought!). But nothing.

            He was working on the last chapter of his book, chapter nine. Though it was a somewhat complicated novel he nevertheless had been moving at a good clip up until that morning. In the novel a man winds up marrying a hooker, then discovers through another hooker (one he is paying for services) that his wife is still pulling an occasional 'trick for old customers. A few other incidents of a surprise nature are thrown in----the murder of a pimp, a trip to Brazil----but as he came to the last chapter he was so confident of finishing he had even given the publishing house a completion date.

            No question of Edwin Franks' familiarity with writer's block. He had felt it on many an occasion, times when the page looked as black to him as a ten foot grave under a new moon and the most eloquent phrase he could script would be a page number. But it was not such a block which had now crept into his way. The hold was of a more active nature,

like he was sorting through unfamiliar playing cards, or on the brink of an important discovery, but forever on the brink and baffled as to where next he should turn. He grimaced, listening to his heart tick off the seconds. How could he blank out such a grotesque event? He hummed to himself, slowly, nasally -- Dixie -- his bony face turning soft as warm puddy. He rolled his chair, squeaking, back from the typewriter and turned it off. There would be no writing this day.The frustrating lubricity of his inaction left Edwin Franks as tired as if he'd been splitting logs, or had completed a full chapter. As he showered and dressed, he looked back at the blank page rolled in the typewriter, knowing full well he'd need to work furiously to make up thelost time. He took a slug of vodka and cranked up his Mercedes Benz for the drive into Piper City to check the mail and to buy groceries.

            As he drove through the town, heading toward the stoplight at Main in the direction of the Post Office, he looked about the old storefronts and sidewalks. The streets were lightly populated that day (as they usually were) with pick-up trucks, and hot rods; and a few half-rusted Chevys, driven by overweight mothers in curlers, a bevy of children looking placidly out the back windows. He noticed Mrs. Canter stepping out of her car by the florists and they exchanged polite waves. She had taught school at the Piper City high school for thirtythree years, until her leg trouble had started. Edwin Franks slowed his pace as he followed an old man with a top hat, creeping his way through town as if the car were no more able to muster up energy than the driver; but the pace was endearing. Edwin Franks had grown. accustom to the deliberate flow of events. There were very few things which couldn't, if it came right down to it, wait until tomorrow. It was a marked contrast from the bustle of Chicago. Not only was the pace attractive to Edwin Franks from the standpoint of authenticating the simple humanistic history of the American West, but it seemed to provide a quieter, more calculated frame of attitude to allow his creative process to flower. There were, in fact, many parallels between the work of true artists, he believed, and the work of the best farmers. Every farmer knows the importance of carefully planning his crop, applying the exact right amount of seed, fertilizer and pesticide (careful editing, for the writer), all measures determined through a combination of study, years of experience and often, pure intuition--- what felt right then, each day, keeping a careful eye on the stages of growth, pulling out the weeds, inspecting for mites, praying (when necessary) for rain; until at last the crop grew hearty and full, tomatoes as big and hard as softballs, ears of corn so ripe you could smell the juice in the kernels when your tractor passed the downwind edge of the field; a process that produced for the novelist a story so full of life and heady fruit that it falls off the vine with a mere nudge and is devoured at a single sitting, along with cornbread and minted iced tea.

            He waited at the light, humming Oh Suzanna. He could detect in the air the infringing of new orders. The farm kids were restless. Just a month ago they had spray painted an old wooden Indian, one that had sat undefaced for seventy years, and gave him mock genitals. Another constant of the universe: the continuity of change. Some resisted the process, refused to accept the vaccilations, heads turned, glancing from the corner of their eye, locking themselves into a disreality, full of goblins. He made a left turn and drove to the post office. The heat was pervasive enough to open up his pores and start him sweating in just his few steps to the door and inside there was not much relief. A fan in the corner blew hot air back and forth across the room. He waited at the counter as a clerk shuffled from the back room. Edwin Franks spoke up.

            "Hot enough for ya?"

            The clerk looked up over his glasses, as if trying to figure something out about Edwin Franks. "Reckon it is," he answered. "Do for ya?"

            "Yes. I'm here to pick up a parcel. Edwin Franks."

            As the postman reached behind him, sorting through a file, he gave a further comment on the weather. "Yea sir, don't seem to be no end to it." He came up with a card, checked the mailing address and headed toward the back of the room. "Say Tonley's Creek 'bout to dry up. Heard it from an engineer for the state." He found the box and returned', passing the receipt forward for Edwin Franks to sign. Edwin Franks said: "I spect it'll end soon, the heat wave and all." The clerk sucked at his teeth and looked out the dusty window. "Well, we can only pray." "Yep," Edwin Franks said, then: "Gooday sir," and he headed back to the car. A firecracker went off down the street. On his drive back home he ran into his neighbor, Anson Bailey. The farmer had been out in the front yard walking their collie when Edwin Franks pulled by. He slowed down and pulled in the dirt driveway. "How ya doing, Anson?"

Anson looked at him without expression, the sun forcing his eyes into mere slits. It was difficult to gauge exactly what the man was thinking, his expression so continually gloomy; or intensely unexpressive, as if all things one might say were "needless to say", or "went without saying." His daughter pulled up the driveway in the pick-up as they talked. She jumped out, wearing jeans and a red halter top, looking as expressive as her father was not.

            "No, it's been pretty quiet," Anson Bailey said. "Didn't realize you got a new car."

            Edwin Franks watched his daughter bounce across the yard toward the porch. She looked back at them and gave a smile and a quick wave, flirtatiously, then disappeared into the house. Anson Bailey continued looking at Edwin Franks, as stern as the mailbox he leaned on. They stood in the bright sun, despite the fact a huge old oak offered shade not ten paces away. Edwin Franks understood the farmer's point. Their conversation was brief.

            Rote motions. Cultural traveling. Edwin Franks carried the type samples into his sparsely furnished den and began looking over them, though his mind was still far away. His conversations with Mr. Bailey and the postman had left him even more uneasy than he had been earlier. He couldn't pinpoint exactly what it was that was so disturbing. (He pulled off his shirt, then, by habit, went for his half-full bottle of gin and a glass of ice and sat down stiffly.) Suddenly the postman's words cut at him: "Well, we can only pray." He swirled his glass, took a sip, cracked a knuckle, then sifted through the pages on the coffee table in front of him.’What difference did it make?’, he thought. Probably there was some connection between the shape of the type used in a book and the ultimate, slowly-induced effect which the contents of the book would work in the reader's memory. But who was smart enough to match the shape of the lettering with the shape of a thought? He set aside a page with clear and distinct lettering, almost textbookish, and continued auditing the samples uncomfortably. Again, his mind wandered, this time to the forlorn figure of Anson Bailey, stoic in his simple faith, yet----and perhaps here Edwin Franks' interpretations turned poetic---behind Bailey's faith lay a deep well of rage. He, like everyone, existed in an endless tread against the brownian flow of the  universe. When the molecules bounced against each other in his favor, he accepted the good fortune with humility. When the chaos lined up a turn of bad luck he watched it fall over him with a farmer's serenity, borne of a long communion with nature, but not without the gestation of some unmanageable dilemmas. Perhaps it was easier to cope with the mutability of the universe in its more basic, primary forms (i.e. weather patterns, plant diseases, insects), than the more complicated----at least on the surface----arenas involving human interaction and conflict. People who earn their livelihood on the streets, drill-press operators, waiters, bank vice presidents; all understand intuitively that while they are largely subject to the will of the collective economy (the collective socio-history), under the right circumstances they can have an impact on the status quo. Not so in the case of the farmer. He can dump truckloads of perfectly drafted proposals and honest petitions on every courthouse step in the county, rant at the sky with the conviction of a preacher from every corner of his spread, and not change the course of a single raindrop: it was a different game. Edwin Franks held his drink up to the hazy sunlight filtering through the drapes and he picked out a small bug.

            He felt a dull pain between his legs, the tugging of sexual impulses, sending his imagination toward Anson Bailey's 17-year old daughter, her bouncy gait across the yard, an expression not nearly so innocent as Mr. Bailey imagined. If Anson only knew what went on those weekends when he traveled with their younger son, Trey, to one of the Universities for a weekend stay. Trey was an all-conference tackle trying to sort out a college from a myriad of confusing offers. Sally wouldn't wait long to begin the party. The first sign would be a pick-up truck pulling into the backyard with the first keg of beer. By sunset the stereo would be blasting across the fields and the shouts and laughter of teenagers reaching progressively higher levels of intoxication and reckless abandon would echo between the two homes. Edwin Franks would peek out his bedroom window sometimes like an old lady, at once concerned at their lack of respect for the farmer's home and disappointed as well that, under the circumstances, he couldn't throw on a T-shirt and a pair of jeans and join the party, help them drain the foamy keg, subtly corner a drunk cheerleader, or a thesbian even.

            One night Sally had come by, well after midnight, her blouse halfdrenched with beer, stumbling drunk. He was still up----as he usually was at that hour----(even without the echoing rock n' roll), and somehow he had known it would be her at the door, though he hadn't anticipated her remarks as he slowly opened the door.

            "Mr. Franks," she said, smiling, eyes lit up with drunkeness, "Come join the party."

            He smiled at her and she reached out for his hand. "Come on," she said, tugging at him. There's some friends I'd like you to meet." Wisely, he had declined.

            He turned on a yellow lamp beside the sofa, too distracted to continue judging the merits of the type samples, and began sorting through the other mail. He recognized a letter before he had even opened it; it was his ex-wife's handwriting. It had been nearly a year since shehad written and it had him puzzled. He tore it open clumsily and began reading.

 

Dear Edwin,

I hope this letter finds you in good spirits. As for me, things have been rather trying of late. Henry (you may remember him, he was a pilot) got arrested for bank fraud--or indicted--and is being sought for extradition in Canada. It's all very terrible. I'm being subpoenaed as a witness even though I know almost nothing about it. My lawyer says it looks bad. I may have to start looking for a house. Talked to Rachel on the phone Tuesday. She says you sound gloomy. Perhaps you need to get out of that silly country farm house. Might brighten up your countenance. I may be in Chicago on the weekend of the 17th.   Let me know if you will be in town, perhaps we can lunch.

Love,

Missy

 

            Edwin Franks folded the letter and slipped it back in the torn envelope. His eyes were glazed over. A vague memory suddenly manifested itself. Had he foretold the stockbroker's fate? He had cursed him some way. He'd typed a perverse wish on the poor man----(What was it?). He searched the images. It was gone, not even a certain reality. More illusion.

            He thought of Melissa. ‘So she was about to marry a bank robber!’, he thought. On each occasion since the divorce that they had had correspondence it had left him mystified as to how they could ever have been married. She was beautiful, admitedly, but her pre-occupation with form and fashion at the sacrifice of substance (logical thought) had turned her into a walking commercial for whatever restaurant or automobile happened to be popular in the current month. They'd married just before the success of Simple Pleasures, a book he had written four years prior which suddenly appeared on the best seller's list and, it seemed----for a while anyway----they couldn't print enough of them. While the sudden influx of money into Edwin Franks' account was certainly welcome it didn't change his fundamental philosophical outlook on life; at least not in the degree it did with Melissa. In a very short period Edwin Franks found he could no longer communicate with his wife. When they did talk it was inconsequential gossip, or arguments about their expenditures or itinerary. Money had ruined her. It was, as far as Edwin Franks could tell, irreversible. So he bowed out and she took him for all she could. Fortunately his lawyer was smart enough to reduce the losses to a minimum. Edwin Franks knew what Melissa wanted to talk about over lunch. Money. To help her cover some outrageous debts she had built up under the expectations of marrying the stockbroker, pilot, bank-embezzler and soon-to-be-con. He tore open a fan letter from an admirer. "I have never read a book that seemed so real. When George turned up at the end I felt like I could just cry and cry. . . "

            Edwin Franks put the letter down, picked up another envelope and studied the return address. The fan mail came in spurts. There would be weeks with but one or two letters, then, it seemed, a whole mail bag would arrive, as if the post office gathered it up for easier delivery. He made no pretenses about reading it all (as many of his fellow authors did). He lacked that type of stamina. Rather, he sampled the comments, tried to be unmoved and kept on writing books. There was an offer to speak at Wichita State University. Five hundred dollars plus expenses. He chuckled at the thought. "Good evening. I'd like to talk to you tonight about Voodoo and the art of novel writing." He sorted through more samples, pushing some aside for later consideration, still musing on how far away the actual completion of his book loomed. His focus had turned so opaque he could hardly recall the plotline. Apprehension stood looking out the  window.

 

III

 

The next day he got word of the funeral. As Edwin Franks packed for the trip to Chicago he laughed at the news he would have to bring with him. He had expected to be completely finished by this date. Instead he still had a full chapter to finish. Well, they'd hired a new editor (they were having a meeting at the publishing house Monday morning) and in the bureaucratic shuffle his tardiness would hardly be noticed. Ridley Publishing, Inc. had hired a fellow named Bill Prescott, a former magazine editor from New York who had been in England the past several years working on a book of English Criticism. Apparently several of the board members knew Prescott from their connections as part owner of the same New York magazine. He was a man who could get things done, they said. Edwin Franks felt isolated from the whole affair. More isolation. They stood in the yard of an old cemetery north of Chicago. The afternoon was hot and the smells of dead fish drifted across the graveyard from Lake Michigan. Mel's sister Pollie Winslow gave the oration. She was fifty-five and she had never married. She started with scripture, then a quote from Shakespeare, then she began her own impressions:

 

Mel Winslow, my brother, teacher, healer, friend. A strong man, full of brass, able to wither the storms of October and welcome the winter's respite with quiet arms. Yet gentle, full of gay breezes, a man of constant season. We all struggle to make sense of life, and of death. Find some thread, some cause for rejoicing, for restive sleep. Given its constant pace it is amazing we can ever be at peace with the universe. No one can see the finality beyond the grave. We all have our memories of Mel. (She began weeping). I'd like to read a quote from his preface to the collected works of Sinclair Lewis. "Everyman has seen this road and has wandered it in reflection." He will be missed by all of us. Amen.

 

It was a tough audience she played to, an audience of rhetoriticians keen to every turn of phrase, every metaphor, suspiscious of every symbolic allusion (intended or otherwise) and yet, when she was finished, had covered her face with a lace handerkerchief and dropped her rose on the coffin, there didn't appear to be a dry eye in the group. Perhaps partly it was the heat. Edwin Franks looked down mutely, studying his shoes, afraid to look up at Pollie's face, as if her stare might contain judgment; if not from her, then from more substantive forces. None. No judgment. If thou hath unpure thoughts in thy heart then in God's eyes thou hath sinned already.

On the following Monday the new editor held a press conference. He made a short, unimpressive speech and following it he corraled the senior editors and writers into a committee room for what began as a brief meeting. Edwin Franks sat next to Red Lappier, who wrote mystery novels (good ones, in Edwin Franks' opinion), but a man with few close friends, even less than Edwin Franks himself. The new editor arranged his notes nervously as he waited for everyone to file in. Edwin Franks looked over Red's shoulder, piecing together an impression of the new editor: he was short, no more than 5'7" tall, and of medium build; his hair was jet black and greased straight back so that the wrinkled furrows on his.forehead were distinct and shadowed. His small brown eyes blinked harriedly, as if waiting for news from an emergency room. Edwin Franks didn't much like the impression he was forming. The last man sat down and Prescott promptly began the meeting.

            "Good afternoon gentlemen." His voice came out like a heavy whisper. "To those of you I haven't met my name is Bill Prescott." He gave  his spiel curtly, predictably, then concluded. Red Lappier appeared to be dozing off. After the meeting Prescott caught Edwin Franks as he was working his way toward the door. Edwin Franks was anxious to phone Missie and tell her he'd be late for their lunch date.

            "Edwin Franks!" Prescott stopped him with an overly firm handshake. "Good to make your acquaintance."

            "It's a pleasure to meet you."

Prescott escorted Edwin Franks to a chair back away from the table and pulled one over for himself. "You seem troubled Edwin?"

            "Well, it's just that I'm expected for lunch and I like to be punctual." "I see. Well, I know Mel Winslow must have been an old friend of yours."

            Edwin Franks stuttered briefly, "We . . . I . . . Uh, he'd been here for some time. Yes, we were old friends."

"I understand also that you had a somewhat unique relationship -- as far as the coordination of your novels, that is: release dates, marketing plans, etc."

            Edwin Franks smelled the direction Prescott was heading. "Well, Mel could be a little confining. You know, you got the impression his artistic ideals were often heavily compromised.” Prescott smiled. He recognized the barb and regrouped. "Yes, well perhaps that's why editors made such lousy book writers?" "Maybe so."

            "OK. Well. Enough about that. How's your work coming? What is it again? Fatal Lies?"

            "Lines."

            "Lines, I see; and?"

            "Coming along fine. Just fine."

            "So you expect to have it in shortly? I guess the whole marketing plan had been geared toward a Christmas release. Just from looking over the old files."

            "Yea. Maybe so." Edwin Franks looked off toward the window, where a typewriter sat lit up in lines of shadow and light by the venetian blinds. He blinked his eyes, becoming more irritated by the second, waiting for Prescott to conclude the discussion. Prescott's face twitched slightly. "OK then," he said, "I'll be in touch."

            "Good enough," Edwin Franks said, rising, looking down on the man as if to physically intimidate him. They shook hands again and Edwin Franks hurried to meet his ex-wife.

            She was waiting for him at a table near the window, looking down on Dailey Plaza. She wore a loose white blouse and, what seemed to Edwin Franks, huge, donot-shaped earrings. As he approached her, thinking up diversionary comments, she pretended not to notice him, looking behind her for the waiter. Her salad was half-eaten.

            "Meeting run a little long?", she said. He sat down, drawing back a little from her gaze and from her overpowering perfume.

            "Yea. New editor. Pressing me on my book. You know Mel Winslow died. Got struck by lightning." He nearly strangled the words getting the sentence out.

            "No!"

            He shook his head. "My god!"

            "It happens, you know. About five hundred people a year."

            "Jesus! Well. Jesus. So what about your book?" She was obviously moved. "What about it?"

            "What's it about? Do you wanna order?" She signaled for the waiter. "Yea. What are you having?"

            "Lemon Sole Almondine."

            "Hmmmmm." (The waiter approached them.) "I'll have the sole and a Rob Roy Perfect." Edwin Franks handed away the menu and continued speaking to Missie. "Uh, let's see. . ." (For a moment his mind went blank----he felt suddenly weak----then his train of thought came back, the characters in his book springing to life like dancers on a stage), "well, it's about a guy and a hooker. You'd enjoy it." He smiled devilishly.

            "Now what's that supposed to mean?"

            "Nothing. A joke. Where's your sense of humor?" "It has been worn thin."

            "I see." He looked down on the plaza, noticed a man with long bushy hair and a long beard handing out pamphlets, hopping around as if he were in mime. The drink came and he took a good sip, letting it wash over him. She resumed the conversation.

            "You look awfully tired, Ed." "Must be the smog."

            "You grew up in the smog." "I was a tired little boy." "Well, it is good to see you." "Yea. Well, you look good yourself." (Had it been that long?) He paused, took a sip, then went on. "So how's the situation with your friend?"

            "Hah! Some friend. I don't want to talk about it. Too depressing. He told me it was stock dividends. I was in the dark; totally. I couldn't believe it. He had proposed to me."

            "And you had accepted." A statement. "I was thinking it over."

            "I suppose you've made up your mind." "Why are you taunting me?"

            "I'm just curious as to why you've waited a year and a half and then suddenly get the urge to see my tired little face."

            "I…..” -- he cut her off.

            "Wait. I get the impression that you're in financial trouble." "Not really."

            "And you want a loan."

            "I. . . .what has gotten into you?" "I've turned mystical."

            She bit her lip, looked at him with her best puppy dog face: bedroom eyes. "I'm not convinced," she said, then, quickly: "Are you seeing anyone?"

            The question surprised him. He hesitated, unsure which lie he should present. "Well, I've been kind've busy. The book and all." (A non-answer. The best lie.) He looked her over carefully; there ws still that something about her which had first attracted him to her, made vibrant sexual fantasies spring forth as if she had premeditated them. She put a hand on her cheek, almost tipped over her glass of wine. Perhaps she was drunk; he didn't know. His mind was tossed between the more troubling predicament of giving in to her in her sad but selfinflicted plight, or resisting the pull of a familiar and dangerous whirlpool. The characters from his book continued moving across the stage of his mind, stopping at moments to look at him and give him a half-grin; his own expression. There was no way to deny the sexual attraction bubbling up in him. Yet he was wary of the price. He wished he had a script to follow, an outline giving him the next turn in the plot. He had neither, so fumbling nervously with his silverware he let her talk. The afternoon dragged on, the pavement shimmered, stifling the rush, the city traffic growled and the slopes took them to hiscondo.   Missie would, indeed, like his book. He came to without thoughts, his sense of time concealedin emotion and he lay in bed in the darkness, night racing by on the ceiling overhead, desperate for rain.

            Desperation. Patience. He drove quickly on his way to Piper City, trailing behind him a plethora of thoughts: somehow, aware of each step on the way, conscious of the dangers, he'd fallen into a commitment with Missie. (How?) Not binding of course; that is, not legal, but just the …..and the new editor ---- PRESCOTT --  metallic.     

Winslow's ghost haunts Chicago. His book seemed to be skating away, himself stuck between two worlds, fantasy and reality say, nightmare and awakening,

the past and the future, incapable of feeling his way out, equally fearful of both directions. He stopped at a liquor store outside Kankakee and purchased a bottle of Tequila with his last ten dollars cash. The air was dry as Texas; Mexico. Everyone was in bad spirits. He took a swig, gripped the wheel and took off through the dust, dreaming of rain clouds. C'est plus change, c'est plus la meme chose. All life is mere coincidence. "Existential nonsense," he said aloud.

            As the days dragged on his house loomed over him stultifying, an immense, musty shadow, full of regrets. Simply entering the structure covered his mind with a metaphysical confusion which made ordinary functioning difficult. He walked through the rooms like a graverobber, afraid to keep any one train of thought too long, as if it might carry him into hallucinations. Unable to put words on the page he drifted toward all sorts of odd behavoir --  mostly to keep time at bay----but other, more unusual digressions were at work as well. He began planting a garden, which meant driving into town for all sorts of tools and seed stuff. With the season in the midst of one of the worst droughts in years the locals must've thought him totally mad. Imperious to their inquiries Edwin Franks worked diligently.

            He began to have fantastic dreams. He witnessed the phoenix walk through a bonfire, rise up into the sky and create a downpour. He watched in horror/delight as Sally Bailey's naked body was carried on the outstretched hands of the entire football squad and then laid on his front porch. She appeared dead. His ex-wife's voice haunted him like a ghost. Sobs and laughter; more characters (the book). Even the shadows were apprehensive.

            Sometimes late in the afternoon Edwin Franks would visit with his neighbor, Anson Bailey. The farmer would be sipping iced tea on the porch, sometimes listening to Cole Porter or the country and western station in town. Sally would come out from time to time and straddle the porch rail or sit in the swing, making eyes at Edwin Franks and leaning over, exposing half her cleavage. It was not that such neighborly activities were against Edwin Franks' nature. For he was (he believed so, anyway) as strong an advocate of human brotherhood as there was on the planet. It was just that the process of novel writing always took from him so much intense concentration that it captured most of his time and all of his energy. One less worry, more or less. In the course of his visits with the farmer occasionally their conversations would turn     esoteric. Edwin Franks would look off across the yard toward the brown, curling corn-field across the road, mimicking the farmer, swirling his tea.

            "So you attend church in town?" He'd noticed the farmer dressed up on Sunday mornings, piling into the pick-up.

            "Methodist. You've seen it. Corner of Pinckney and Douglas. Nice church. Oughta visit."

            "Well I might do that."

            "Having a prayer meeting next Wednesday." "S'that right?"

            "Yep. Preacher's praying for rain."

            "You sound like your not so sure it'll be enough."

            "The Lord giveth," he said, musing on the idea, "and the Lord taketh away."

            Sally would jump up from the swing and wrap her arms around a pole at the front of the porch. "We should get the old Indian Chief; what's his name? I heard he'll do a rain dance." (To Edwin Franks.) "He's on strike cause they.cut off his welfare."

            Anson Bailey would lean forward. "Hogwash!"

            Edwin Franks sips on his tea, holding back comment. His impulse, given all the events of the last few weeks, is to call Anson Bailey dwon on his obvious shortsightedness. The faith of the Indian Chief and the Methodist Preacher, both are the same: and open-ended faith in a system that could no more be proved (or disproved) than you could walk through a brick wall. "Suppose the Indian Chief did a rain dance and fifteen minutes later it rained like a hurricane?", he wanted to spit out. "What then?" Had not the whole congregation been praying for rain daily? Ah, Faith. All is mere chance, reckless rebounding, the mathematics of the infinite. He noticed a dead fly in his tea and pulled it out nervously, then flicked if off the porch.

 

IV

           

            This madness might have continued all summer, fueled by the heat, or perhaps into further seasons, if not for some unusual and unexpected events. Like this: he had been toying with his garden early in the day. He had stopped to sharpen his hoe when he heard the voice of Charlie Lastinger coming around the corner of the house. As soon as Charlie set eyes on Edwin Franks he appraised his insolvent state of mind. They talked. Edwin Franks tried to convince Charlie that everything was wonderful, his life was quiet and bursting with fine art, but the facade was weak. Edwin Franks offered Charlie a drink, showed off his garden (yellowish. plants, most of them dying), boasted about his novel: "A masterpiece of unparalleled subtlety," but before the morning had elapsed Charlie had seen the far bank. After using the upstairs bathroom Charlie had wandered into Edwin Franks' bedroom. Noticing the apparent manuscript near the desk, he looked through

the pages, then set them down, short of breath. Edwin Franks was draining a drink as Charlie returned down the stairs.

            "Edwin. Can I see the book?"

            "The book? 'Oh no. It's a secret. It's special." "You haven't finished it."

            "Well, Charlie, you sound like Prescott's hit man?"

            "Edwin. Why do you think I'm here? Do you think I just happen to be in the neighborhood? We're worried. your phone has been disconnected. For Chrissake! I mean, can't you see what it looks like?" "Well, it's . . . . I don't see your point." "They think you've fallen into the bottle."

            Edwin Franks burst out laughing, slapping his knee. He was sweating profusely and he smelled terrible.

            "I just wish," he started to say, then: "You guys . . ." "Edwin I went into your bedroom. I saw the book."

            "Charlie, I," he said, then he put his head in his hands. "Charlie, I think," (he was muttering), " I caused my wife's lover to get thrown in jail. At least, that is, I wished it. I made a covenant. I wrote it out in vengence. It's true! It happened!"

Charlie sat next to him, listening carefully, in total disbelief. As any sensible person would, he judged it all madness, the ravingsof a lunatic. But the important matter was this: Edwin Franks seemed to believe it. He believed he could fix events in the future with a wish and a few words. They walked out to the back porch. They stood on the rickety boards looking down on his pitiful garden, the sour smell of Bailey's corn in the tumid wind. Edwin held on to the rail with both hands, steadying himself both physically and psychologically. The wood was splintering in his grip. He told his story. A black bird sailed lazily across the sky and lighted on a scarecrow.

            "Listen to me Ed," Charlie said, when he was finished. "We can go to my place. Give you some time to think."

            "Hah! Think." He wiped his face with both hands, smearing the salt and tears onto his t-shirt. "What do you think I've been doing? Thinking. It's an overwhelming responsibility."

            "What about the book?" "You finish it!"

Just then Sally Bailey appeared from the barn, pushing a wheelbarrow. She looked over, shielded her eyes to better make out the stranger, and gave them a wave. Edwin Franks raised his hand solemly. A dust vortex floated across the yard.

            "You can't make things happen in the future. The world doesn't work that way."

            "I know."

            There was no way Charlie Lastinger could pull Edwin Franks out

of his lapse. Who could? The man had obviously crossed that line which separates the rational from the not. His buddy offered him financial assistance, suggested he see a shrink, but the words were not registering. The book sat unfinished, as far from completion as Neptune. As the afternoon heat sweltered and the walls of the old house creaked in the fiery wind, Charlie left Edwin Franks sleeping on his sofa, exhausted as an old man might be (having raked leaves for an hour, say) and the night closed in once more. The fire raged in the night. The fire raged in more than just the night. The writer's skull; unquenchable, full of coals. He awoke in a sweat, blue moonlight covering the room and as he dragged himself to his feet he heard a knocking at the door. Like this: He held his forehead, amused by something. He spoke,

to no one: "While I nodded, nearly napping." He made his way through the foyer, turned on the porchlight, then swung open the door. Sally Bailey looked up at him with big green eyes and a tight-lipped grin. The bourbon on her breath as she spoke came to his senses clear and powerful.

            "You busy?"

            He laughed again. "Right." He shuffled, put a hand on his whiskered cheek. "Right."

            She slipped by him into the house. As he leaned against the wall he watched her walk through the kitchen, looking about curiously: a svelte, lithe cat, but shit-faced.

            "My daddy's gone to Terre Haute. They want Billy for their football team. You wudn't belive the stuff they do. Buy you dinner. Treat you like the president. Daddy says it's all politics. Says colleges are owned by rich folks. I guess you been to college. Where'd you go? Hey! And who was that guy over here today? Was he a writer?" Edwin Franks closed the door, shutting out the hot air, and walked into the kitchen wiping his face.

            "You're drunk."

            "Naw. Just tipsy. C'mon. Where d'you go?"

            "Ha. I went to several schools. None that mean anything. By the way, you're daddy's right."

“About what?", she said, turning quickly, stumbling, then knocking a coffee cup off the counter. "Shit! Whoops." She bent down to pick it up in a grandiose display of her finer genetic qualities. She looked up at him, her eyes bloodshot, yet full of cat-energy. "Ya got anything to drink?"

            "I may, but I think you've had enough."

            "Aw, c'mon Mr. Franks. Just one drink. For goodness sake. What'd I do? Don't you like me?"

            He struggled for words. "I . . . . listen Sally . . . . your father is a good friend of mine. I don't think he would appreciate my pouring a drink for his seventeen-year old daughter; who was already pretty tanked up."

            "My daddy says you're kinda famous. You know I read The Mason's Son?"

            He was startled. A connection. A link. Chain letters. Chain lightning. "You did?"

            "Yea. I just finished it. I loved it. Especially the part when George comes back in. It…."

"I know. It made you cry." "Yea. It was wonderful."

            "Thank-you. I'm working on another book now and its . . . .well," he cleared his throat, looked out the kitchen window at the moonlit cornfield.

            "What's it about?" "You'll see."

            "Do you write in here?" She looked into the den, then went through the doorway. He followed her.

            "I work upstairs; in my bedroom." "Oh yea?"

            "Yeah."

            "That's neat."

            He chuckled. "Neat."

            She rubbed her hand across the sofa back then fell into the cushions. "You know my daddy's gonna be gone till Monday?"

He looked at her from across the room, wary of stepping too close, as if she might jump out at his leg. The outline of her breasts were perfectly revealed behind her t-shirt, weakening his resistance, strengthening his hormones. She continued.

            "I think you're sexy       Mr. Franks."

He stood, almost shaking, staring at her, silent except for his hearbeat.

            "Shew," she said, yawning. "S'past my bedtime. Come here. I've got something to tell ya." She ran her finger across her lips in a gesture of liquid-golden temptation. She patted the seat. "My lips are sealed." Only a Saint could resist it. He was no saint.Her: Savoir? They pulled a bottle of ancient champagne out of the frig and pushed each other giggling up the stairs. In moments their bodies were thickly entwined, sweating, despite the cool breeze of the air conditioner. The champagne flowed and they wore each other out, spent every ounce of sexual passion they could muster; lived out dreams. Edwin Franks blanked out his guilt. Not in the religious sense; but in the sense of duty to his fellow man. In that regard he had failed utterly. Perhaps. She lay on his chest kissing him, hot and slippery, purring. They fell to sleep in the midnight.

            As the light of dawn came powerfully into the room Sally Bailey was awakened. She slipped away from his snoring bulk and began inspecting the room. She read some pages beside the typewriter and looked at the page in the carraige. It was dark with age and curled from being so long in the carbon. She was curious. She slipped back in beside him, moaning. "Hmmmmm." She ran her hand down his torso, making him roll over to consciousness.

            "Good morning," he said, smiling (no traces of regret). She ran her other hand under the sheet.

            "You're absolutely beautiful," he said. "A work of art. A masterpiece."

            She smiled. "I know. You know what I want?" "I'm not so sure I can stand it."

            "I think you'll be alright."

            She moved beneath the covers, charging up his excitement, then she climbed on top of him. In moments it was over and she rested above him, breathing heavily. Her words made him start. She spoke softly, a child-whisper. "What's the deal with the typewriter? That page over there has been there for a year."

            He sniffled, confused, unable to think clearly, the champagne still bubbling in his brain. Another, more troubling discomfiture came to mind. He blanched.

            "Talk to me," she said. She put her small hands on his shoulders, as if holding him to the bed, pushing his thoughts backwards.

Like this: he began, hedging at first, picking out quiet metaphors (but honest ones), then, before even he could believe it, he began his tale. His Confession. She hovered uneasily over him as he talked, on her face a soured expression. He looked up at her, pitifully expecting sympathy, perhaps at least understanding, in the way that only a lover can trully understand another person's soul. But instead she became angry, then furious.

            "You bastard!", she cried.

            He had no defense, no line of retreat for her charge.

            "You stupid bastard! You're telling me you think you can just write something and it'll happen? Does God read your writing?"

            "No. It's not true."        

            "You fool!", she shouted, pounding her fist on his chest, making him gasp. She hit him again. Futilely, he tried to push her away.

            "You don't understand," he got out, through her shouts. "I'm afraid. It's terrible. Don't you see?"

            "It doesn't matter." She rolled from the bed, then grabbed his     arm. "You've gotta try. You've gotta at least do that." With surprising force she yanked him out of bed. He caught himself before his head hit the floor.

            "Wait," he pleaded. The girl's strength amazed him.

            Both of them totally nude, beaded with sweat, smelling awful, she stood over him as he sat hunchbacked, helpless as a kid who'd wet his bed, wincing over the keys, rolling the paper, turning the switch on, then writing her request, scorching the words into life and branding them in both their hearts. He'd seen the sentence a million times:

The rain came today, and the drought ended.

            Edwin Franks pushed away, dropped his head into his hands. Sally Bailey hugged him, felt him tremble. She looked out the window, the sky bright with dawn, cloudless and dust-filled. She led him back to bed and, sheltered in each other's embrace, they slept away the morning. The awakening always carries with it astonishment. A wondrous timbre for the entire county. The green clouds rolled in from the west, disrespectful of all creatures. Thunder crashed and boomed in a long procession and the rain came at last. Edwin and Sally threw on their clothes and pushed each other to the back porch. Suddenly, lightning struck about a mile away and they stepped back for a moment, then clutched each other's hand. Edwin Franks looked at the ground silently, watching the earth turn dark, soaking up the rainfall, his consciousness unengaged, as if he'd slipped out of time. The pelting of the rain surrounded his senses totally. He watched Sally step off the porch into the yard, motioning for him to follow. She turned her face up to the sky, reached out to the cool pellets. She turned back to her neighbor-lover, smiling, signalling for him to join her. He laughed.

            "It's all coincidence," he said. "What?"

            "It's coincidence. All coincidence!"

            "I know," she yelled back, oblivious to the implications, to the mud rising about her bare feet. "It's incredible!"

           

V

            One rainstorm would not save the crops.

            A continually beating sun is much too pervasive. But it happened that in the weeks that followed a normal pattern of rainfall did resume. Thunderclouds loomed over the farmlands once more and the rain brought fresh life to Southern Illinois. It brought back those plants hearty enough to withstand the previous days of drought. Some of the plants, as will always happen, floated away into the streams, their topsoil being too loose and dry; while others drowned in the bounty (the ground hard-packed, unable to absorb the hard rain). Wise choir directors gave thanks in song. Bankers embraced the needy farmers. An Indian got drunk.

            For Edwin Franks it took other happenings to lift his spirits; or rather, non-happenings. Still shaken by the recent turn of events,the sudden end of the drought only threw more confusion into his calculus. His ability to write would have remained frozen as before had it not been for Bill Prescott. Soft Lead. His editor had continued hounding him with stupid, insensitive notes----it was out of control. Careful this time of his grammer, Edwin Franks had lashed out his wishes on the man: cast him into the unemployment line (a tough, but fair, fate, given all the circumstances). A week passed and Prescott was as overbearing as ever. Then two weeks. By the time a month had gone by Edwin Franks had finished the first draft on the last chapter and the pages were beginning to roll from the carraige unrestrained.

            It was impossible, of course, to know what caused the rain (or Mel Winslow's bizarre, untimely death). Like all the headsprings of our existence it was up in the air. We know this: the novel was published, the new editor made more money for Ridley Publishing than they'd ever seen and somewhere in Connecticut, in a small chair by a window a nurse put down Edwin Franks' book and smiled, her mind awash with emotion and over-fed.