The Red Tree

Me: So, anyway, I just found out about that Harvey fellow, Charles Harvey, the suicide.

(long silence)

Me: The URI professor? Rented the place before me.

Blanchard: Yeah. I know who you mean. The man wasn’t right. So, what. You angry I didn’t tell you about him?

Me: No, I’m not angry. I’m just curious.

Blanchard: I’m the one found him, you know.

Me: No, I didn’t know that. None of the obituaries or articles I found online mentioned that.

Blanchard: Well, ain’t like it’s the sort of thing they hand out medals for, finding a man strung up in one of your trees. But I did. I found him not far from the house.

Me: Thishouse?

Blanchard: Yeah. Used an extension cord, not rope, but it worked just fine. He’d been up there four or five days, the coroner said. That’s what they told me. It was hot weather, and that wasn’t a pretty thing to come upon. Birds had been at him, and the maggots, and whatnot.

Me: I had no idea.

Blanchard (sounding defensive): Hardly the sort of thing you go around advertising when you want to lease a house. Not the sort of thing attracts the element I want to be renting the place out to.

Me: No, I guess not. Still, you know, it wasa bit of a shock. I have to admit that.

Blanchard: You’re not angry about this, are you?

Me (laughs): No, no. It’s fine. Really. I was just curious, that’s all. Poor man.

Blanchard: I suppose you gotta have sympathy for situations like that. Still, he wasn’t right, and he croaked himself owing me two months back rent. His girl up in Portland offered to pay, but hell, what kind of asshole would I have looked like taking the money from her?

Me: He was writing a book. That’s what I read.

Blanchard: Yeah, he was writing a book. You don’t come across like the superstitious sort to me, Miss Crowe.

Me: No, I’m not superstitious.

Blanchard: So, sure you’re not sore I didn’t tell you about him?

Me: I’m sure. Why didn’t the daughter take his typewriter with the rest of his belongings?

Blanchard: Daughter didn’t take none of his stuff. My wife sent a bunch of it off to the Goodwill, and I just threw most of the rest out. I thought someone might be able to use that typewriter someday, so I put it in the basement.

Me: And the ribbons?

Blanchard: Ribbons? You lost me.

Me: There was an envelope with ribbons for the typewriter. Several of them. I found those, too.

Blanchard: Yeah. There was an envelope. That’s right.

Me: So, what happened to his book? The manuscript, I mean. There was a page still in the typewriter. I assume he died with it unfinished.

Blanchard: Listen, Miss Crowe, can we please talk about this later? I don’t want to be rude, but I got business over in Wakefield this afternoon, and I’m already ru

I told him not to worry, that I was probably being nosy and that I hate nosiness, especially when I’m the guilty party. I promised again to have the rent to him by the 10th of the month, and he thanked me for letting him know I’d be late with the check, then hung up first. I switched off the cell phone, and promptly hid it from myself. Maybe I’ll find it later. Maybe not. If anyone wants to harass me, they can use the landline.

Anyway, I’m left to conclude that the late Dr. Harvey’s unfinished book, in all likelihood, went to the local landfill or a bonfire or whatever, ifit’s true that the daughter in Maine claimed none of his effects. I can’t imagine why Blanchard would have lied about something like that. All that survives is that one peculiar page, incomplete reflections on “bloody apples” from a tree that died seventy years ago. I’ve been thinking about driving down to Co

And that reminds me, I got the extension on the novel. The extension on the originalextension. The guillotine will just have to wait another six months. Dorothy’s a miracle worker, but I gather my publisher is magnificently displeased, and I’ve had to promise this will never, ever happen again and so forth. Which is rather like promising you’ll never get the flu again, or let it rain on the Fourth of July. Do they think I’m doing this shit on purpose, just to foul up their publishing schedule? Right now, I’d probably give all the fingers on my left hand (I type mostly with my right) for a finished manuscript to appease my editor and fulfill my contractual obligations. Something I could trade in for a decent goddamn payday. Anyway, maybe if I can give Dorry a short story to peddle, everyone will leave me alone for a while. Also, I think this will be the last entry I make in the notebook. I’ve got half a mind to dust off Dr. Harvey’s old Royal machine, feed it a little oil to loosen up the sticky keys and suchlike, and transcribe everything from the spiral-bound notebook to typescript. It’s something to do. And I haven’t felt like going near the laptop for anything but the web (mostly porn, I will admit) since I got here.

Blanchard called at some ungodly hour this morning and woke me up to tell me he’s letting the upstairs, the attic, out to some artist from California. What the fuck? I think I actually said that to him. He pointed out that the lease permitted him to do so, that, as it happens, I’d only rented the downstairs portion of the house. I asked him to hold on while I read through the lease, and yeah, the bastard’s telling the truth. It’s right there, which is what I get for not bothering to read the things I sign before (or after) I sign them. He offered to let me out of my lease, like I have anywhere to go. I declined. I half think he wantsme to leave. Likely, I’m just being paranoid, but maybe I shouldn’t have brought up the subject of the dearly departed Dr. Harvey. The woman arrives next fucking week. So much for solitude.

I have now typed everything from the notebook. It comes to sixty-five pages, all stacked neatly on the table beside me and the bottle of Jack I’ve been working on since yesterday. From here on, I’ll keep this journal — which is what it seems to have become — on the dead man’s typewriter and give my pens a rest. I had to drive all the way to Foster to get paper, a pack of five hundred sheets. So, I ca

Spent most of the day in the basement, hiding from the heat and trying not to think about the imminent arrival of the dreaded attic lodger. Also, I got to thinking that just maybe, when Blanchard stowed the old typewriter and the envelope of ribbons down there, possibly he did the same with the anthropologist’s unfinished manuscript. So, hours spent picking through all the moldering junk. I tried to be systematic, begi