Last Night In Twisted River

The tap-tap of the flashlight on the driver’s-side window made Da

“What’s with the music, Da

“I didn’t turn it on, Jimmy,” the writer said. “I didn’t turn on the lights or the music.”

“Who’s in your house?” the trooper asked.

“I don’t know,” Da

“Maybe they’ve come and gone-shall I have a look?” Jimmy asked him.

“I’ll come with you,” Da

“Have you had any letters from a crazy fan lately?” Jimmy asked the writer. “Or any hate mail, maybe?”

“Nothing like that for a while,” Da

“Everyone’s a fucking censor nowadays,” Ketchum had said.

Once he published East of Bangor -his so-called abortion novel-the hate mail might heat up for a while, Da

“There’s nobody out to get you-no one you know about, right?” Jimmy asked.

“There’s someone who thinks he has a score to settle with my dad-someone dangerous,” Da

Da

Though Da

The dead dog had stiffened since Da

“Don’t tell me-let me guess,” the writer said to the state trooper. “I’ll bet the asshole wrote, ‘Fuck you!’-or words to that effect.”

“That’s what he wrote, Da

Roland Drake-that asshole! Da

“I’m into writing, not rewriting,” Drake had told Da

“But rewriting is writing,” Da

Roland Drake had sneered and walked out of Da

“Yes, I know Roland Drake,” Da

Da

“Drake is just a shit-disturber, Da

The same small nuisances were everywhere, throughout the house. When they went to turn the lights out in the garage, Da

There was more of the same juvenile mischief in the guesthouse-the original farmhouse-where the music had been cranked up as loud as it would go and the soundless TV was on. Lamps were tipped on their sides, a pyramid of lampshades decorated the kitchen table, several pictures had been rehung (upside down), and the beds were unmade-in a ma

“This is irritating, but it’s mainly childish,” Da

“I agree,” Jimmy said.

“I’m selling the whole property anyway,” Da

“Not because of this, I hope,” the state trooper said.

“No, but this makes it easier,” the writer answered. Because Da

Da

With a Sharpie permanent marker, in deep black, Roland Drake had scrawled on the cover of the uncorrected proofs of East of Bangor, and inside the galleys, on every page, Drake had written his comments with a Sharpie fine-point red pen. Not that the writer carpenter’s commentary was either insightful or elaborate, but Drake had taken the time to defile every page; there were more than four hundred pages in the galleys of East of Bangor. Da