Houdini
Heart
Books by Ki Longfellow
China Blues*
Chasing Women*
Stinkfoot, a Comic Opera (with Vivian Stanshall)
The Secret Magdalene
Flow Down Like Silver: Hypatia of Alexandria
*Early editions as Pamela Longfellow
This is a work of fiction. Though based on the known facts of people and places mentioned, the events and characters inscribed herein spring from the author’s imagination. No descriptions of public figures, their lives, or of historical personages, are intended to be accurate, but are only included for the purposes of writing a work of fiction, and are not necessarily true in fact.
Copyright © Ki Longfellow, 2011
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by
Eio Books
P.O. Box 952
Ross, California, 94957 U.S.A.
www.eiobooks.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Longfellow, Ki
Houdini Heart / Ki Longfellow
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-9759255-0-8
1. Women authors --Fiction. 2. Vermont --Fiction. 3. I. Title.
PS3562.O499 H68 2011
813’.54
2011012001
Cover designed by Shane Roberts
Book designed by Shane Roberts
Cover image: River House
Cover photo by Shane Roberts
First Nook eBook Edition
Without limiting the right under copyright reserves above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in, or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted material. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.
Dedication
For Silky
Houdini Heart
Ki Longfellow
Perhaps larks and katydids dream. Perhaps absolute reality, as Shirley Jackson once wrote, is absolutely insane.
Given a moment of thought, what the hell is absolute reality? Reality, pure or impure, certain or uncertain, is an illusion. So too is insanity. Perhaps death is the ultimate illusion. Perhaps I am already dead.
Of course larks and katydids dream. We all of us dream. What else is reality but dreaming?
~
River House was a palace when I was nine. When I was nine I intoxicated myself by calling it haunted. A haunted palace. Behind its thick brick walls and tall-windowed rooms, I imagined people laughing, people dancing, people saying things that mattered…and behind them—another world of lunatic darkness they could not see.
From the sidewalk across the Main Street of Little Sokoki, Vermont, my unlettered, foul-mouthed, dishonest mother dragging me along by the arm, I would look back at it, dreaming, for as long as I could.
Almost twelve when we had to skip town, the last time I saw River House I was crammed in with a stray kitten I’d begged to keep, and all my mother’s other junk in the back of her aging Plymouth station wagon.
By then, River House was only a hotel. Just another hotel.
~
For the past few years, I’ve been thirty-six years old. The years flicker by, and with them my mostly unremembered life, yet I’m not getting wiser. Or deeper. Slyer, perhaps. Of necessity, much slyer. I’ve begun to think I might be slow. Or maybe empty. I’d even settle for “repressed” if that meant I was damaged goods, another casualty of early neglect or abuse.
But the truth is, I suspect I’m no more than my mother was: clever, but not all that bright. No real depth, what the Brits call “bottom.” This is probably why I’m not the writer I hoped I would be.
What the hell. Like my mother, I’m also a liar. Because my mother lied, I have no idea who I am, where I came from. Because I lie, neither does anyone else.
I am thirty-six and I’m home again. Or at least back in Little Sokoki. I had to come somewhere. I had to stop somewhere. And Little Sokoki fills a primary need: they won’t think to look for me here. At least not right away.
Stepping out of a Vermont Trailways bus all these years later, weighted down with a large leather shoulder bag and my laptop, I’m in the town we stayed in the longest—even now, three years seems a very long time. Of all the places I lived with my rootless feckless hopeless mother, Little Sokoki, Vermont, was my favorite. Because of the river. Because of River House.
Of course now that I’m here, I can see that I’ve changed—I’ve changed a great deal. In this town, I used to stand awestruck by tiny purple flowers hidden in the grass, by the shape of roots in the deep woods, by the curve of sweet water lured by the salt sea, by my own elfin shadow on walls. Now they mean nothing. I barely notice them. I’d like to think it’s a loss of innocence, but really I’ve been spoiled, as in “corrupted.” I’ve come to know what a palace looks like. A palace looks like certain great houses in Paris, London, New York, Vienna, Barcelona, Beverly Hills. Like certain hotel rooms I could afford for awhile. When my star was on the rise. When I was the l’artiste de l’heure and had won a prestigious literary prize. When the prize had turned into speaking tours, the book turned into a movie—and the prize and the movie turned my head. When I would say things like l’artiste de l’heure.
Thinking back, and even with the excuse of youth, I sicken myself.
I’m not surprised to find River House has not become yet again a palace. For one thing, it’s too small. Nor is it glamorous or fey. It’s still a handsome building; as handsome and as ordinary as many of the old buildings still upright in New England. Stores diminish its ground floor: a Rexall, an Italian restaurant, an opticians, a shop selling lingerie, a dark dusty space with a large “For Rent” sign in its window, a half decent bookstore. (I’ve already looked. I am not in it.) Worse, its small theater, once a home for roving players, is now become a small movie house showing one of Joel’s efforts. Disturbing to see the thing here. Disturbing to think my recent neighbor from across a winding Malibu road’s big budget movie got to Little Sokoki before I did.
Not a palace, River House is also no longer a hotel. Above its shops and movie house, it’s an apartment building. Its ceilings lowered, its wide airy rooms chopped into kitchenettes and “efficiency units,” its flaws painted and painted again, the revolving door torn out long ago, my wonderful “haunted” hotel is gone.
But then, so am I.
I have fled to the town of my youth, and alone. If I am careful, I have money enough to last me six months, maybe seven. In these last months, I will finally live in River House, rent one of its cheapest studio "units," eat very little, buy less, maybe see a movie or two. I will write one more book and in it I will give all that I have left to give, and then, if it’s the usual crap—I’ll kill myself.
Assuming it’ll be crap, this is my suicide note.
~
(Note to self: Walker Percy said, “…suicide seems to help sell books.” I’d add: but it doesn’t guarantee talent.)
~
There. I’ve made a beginning. Perhaps I have half a year to live. Perhaps not. Standing on Main Street, looking up at what’s happened to River House, I see it doesn’t matter.
My third floor room in River House is shabby. Lying on my bed, a futon hastily purchased when I found the room unfurnished, I’m staring up at the ceiling. Once an elegant height, now it is
eight feet from the floor, a useful American distance—the height of a sheet of plywood. To lower it, whoever “remodeled” my once entrancing hotel has crisscrossed the gracious old ceiling with cheap aluminum supports and on these, placed thin plastic ceiling tiles. They’re meant to come away easily in case of fire. And they do. They come away so easily, every time I open or close my door one or another of them falls out of the ceiling. I’ve given up putting them back. Now they’re in a stack in one of my empty corners. The tiles were meant to be cream colored. It’s hard to tell under the deep yellow stain of age and nicotine. We who live here are not allowed to smoke in our rooms. Judging by the ceiling tiles, I must be the only one who obeys. There is one wall in each apartment made of rough wood. The management calls this wall a “feature.” I suspect someone found an old barn and bought its wood on the cheap. All the kitchens have thirty-year-old “harvest gold” refrigerators and “harvest gold” stoves. The gold is a thin mustardy yellow. Very ugly. The small cabinets over the metal sinks are dark brown and sticky with ancient cooking oil. Very ugly. The cheap carpets are industrial brown. Unspeakably ugly.
If River House weeps, who could blame it?
But they couldn’t ruin the windows. The windows are still tall and still filled with the thick wavy glass of years and years ago.
Looking through them, the town below could be beneath the sea. Or under the river. Its streets and buildings and sidewalks are curved. Or bent. Or, in some places, missing.
CHAPTER ONE
~
This is as far as I’ve gotten. Two words staring back at me from my computer screen. I begin with no plans for this last novel, no treatment or outline. I haven’t even a theme (not that I have ever had a theme), and I certainly don’t know my story. But I’ve decided to rely on trust. It will come. It will tell itself to me if I just sit here long enough, stay awake, stop day-dreaming.
~
I shall take a walk. Down to the river that runs along the eastern flank of Vermont. Before I go out, I make sure that my door is locked. Half way to the elevator, I worry: what if I haven’t really locked it? I tell myself I’ve locked the door. I am safe. But what if I’m not? I walk back to check it. It’s locked. Now I tell myself not to lose my keys.
Somewhere over the years I’ve been gone, Little Sokoki seems to have begun thinking of itself as a city. It acts like a city. There are a few city people here come up from Massachusetts to inflict their city ways on it. I turn away. I’ve seen enough of their anger and despair in other places, heard enough of their brutal talk, their brutal music. They do not dream: they demand. They do not imagine: they watch and they envy. They do not read. To them, the few words they know are weapons. Who are they to me and me to them? Although they do go to the movies. Which is why so many movies have become what they are: brutal, stupid, and crude. (Like the perfect example my brutal, stupid, crude, very successful and very rich neighbor produced, now playing at the River House Movie Theater.)
The river is the Connecticut and it is more beautiful in this place than any river I have ever seen. I’m not yet sure, but I think if I have to die by my own hand, I will die in its waters.
Walking along the riverbank in the summer heat, I’ve come across a fish out of water, dead, dried out, its tail frayed and stiff. There are ants in its eye sockets. There are flies crawling on its pried up scales. There is a bee in its mouth. Staring at it, I realize that if I chose drowning, I will have to find a way to avoid being washed up, become something hideous by the edge of the river. Like Virginia Woolf throwing herself in the River Ouse at the bottom of her garden, I might put stones in my pockets to weigh myself down, very big stones. I don’t think I will be able to bear busy ants carrying me away, very tiny piece by very tiny piece, where someone could come by and watch them.
~
Back in my room again.
Filed away on my laptop, there is a copy of each of my five books. This is how The Windigo’s Daughter began, the one that won me my prize, the one that was filmed with a surprising cast of fairies. I’ll put that another way. Its cast played surprising fairies. I’ll try that again. The cast, playing fairies of one sort or another, surprised me with their willingness to play fey outside something written by Shakespeare. They also played horror because The Windigo’s Daughter was a horror story. Just like this one.
Many years ago (or now if you prefer), there was once a wild and wonderful land, full of wild and wonderful people—but more wonderful still, were its creatures.
It wasn't yet called Vermont, but it would be.
At that time, magic walked the earth by day and by night, and the very air shivered with an ancient pizzazz.
Most magical of all was catamount, slick as soap, gaudy as a neon sign. There was Shagamaw Bear, tall as a cedar and fierce as a thistle. And Azeban, the Raccoon, tricky as a cardsharp. Moose stood, placid as an oboe, subtle as a tuba. While Beaver held classes in architecture. And Elephant had hair down to his knees. There was Turkey, bone in her throat. And Otkon, skinned in aniline blue, bathing in bog mud and hissing like a high tension wire. Firefly was a pencil of light writing poems on the dusk. And Turtle, who lived in a house of cucumber green, mumbled wisdom all the day long.
And then there were the little people, the Manogemassak, giggling on the riverbanks, their faces like ax blades, their hearts like water.
While not last and never least, drooled Windigo, whose hairy knuckles scraped the forest floor as he ran and whose voice was like the moaning of the wind.
Over all these stood Manitou, cunning as Houdini, who breathed magic as easily as breathing air.
In those days, the weather was always certain. In winter, the land was thigh-deep in blue snow; in spring, mud. Summer was long and hot and liquid green. Fall was the glory of Manitou.
No doubt, it was always this way, and will remain this way for time everlasting…and then some—but for the Windigo's daughter. Who wasn't bad looking as Windigos go (which is never far enough), but was as restless as the wind over grasses, as willful as the roots of the willow tree. The Windigo's youngest daughter could change things forever, and never look back.
But for now (in your time, in these times), Vermont is a place of green and rolling dairy farms, of covered bridges and boxy Grange Halls, of sugar houses and slender churches, pure white and steepled, of September fairs and ice fishing in February, of small towns easy with assumptions and useful with beliefs. In short, you see a pleasant place, peaceful, perhaps a little romantic.
And of all the small towns in pleasant and peaceful Vermont, Wobanaki Falls is by far the prettiest. And if not the most remote—it's remote enough, lying where the Wobanaki River, rushing cold and clean out of the Green Mountains, flows into the deep blue Connecticut.
It's right here in the town of Wobanaki Falls in the County of Sokoki, Vermont, that our story begins—and ends.
On West Hackmatack Street.
Where Faye, hard as the passing of time but handsome as a Morgan mare, has just come out of her house and is now sitting on her back porch choosing pebbles for her slingshot. On the lawn behind her stands an open tent; under the striped canvas a long table with a pink cloth. All morning long she's been trying things on, taking them off, trying on something else—it's impossible. No matter how she works it, her slingshot shows under her wedding gown. Or gets tangled in the lace.
Faye's getting married an hour from now.
From farther along West Hackmatack Street comes the sound of a lawn mower. Faye stretches her nostrils to catch the scent. Who's mowing their lawn on her wedding day?
When I wrote that, I thought I was someone else. Someone who laughed and danced. Someone with thoughts that mattered. Someone who could see in the dark. Someone I will never think I am again. But even then I wrote about Vermont. Even then I thought Vermont was enchanted, that it was full of magic—and palaces. Wobanaki Falls was the name I gave the small town of my childhood. I see I’ve always been trying to come home.
~
/> CHAPTER ONE
~
Oh, for god’s sake. The old woman is walking by my door again.
In the corridors at all hours of the day or night, or riding the elevators, up and down, she must live in River House. I haven’t seen her enter or leave any of the “units,” but whichever is hers, she can’t or won’t stay in it. Maybe she’s afraid of her feature wall. Or having the tiles of her filthy yellow ceiling fall on her all at once. If she’s waiting for the elevator and someone else shows up, she pretends she’s forgotten something, steps back, allows it to go up or down without her. She never speaks and no one speaks to her. Aside from me, no one even looks at her. I imagine that’s because she’s ugly. Real ugliness is disturbing. If you looked, you couldn’t stop looking. Best not to look at all. Plus, there’s something wrong with her skin besides age and the fact that she hasn’t washed since the invention of water.
If the old woman is not bad enough, only New York City makes more noise than Little Sokoki. On the Rue de Bac, on Hampstead High Street, near the Ramblas, even on Sunset, the streets seemed quieter than they are here. It’s one in the morning and they still shout down below in the parking lot. There is a bar in the basement of River House. The Last Ditch stretches far under the sidewalk, maybe even under the street. On Fridays and Saturdays, it hosts live bands. On Thursdays, it’s open mike night. The Last Ditch is very popular. It means I can’t even try to sleep until gone two in the morning.
Four days of this, and I’ve already decided to sleep during the day and to write at night.
I work in bed. Now that I’m here, I do almost everything in bed. A futon, a lamp, a closet, a bathroom, a refrigerator to chill the wine I drink, what else do I need? I do not need company. All that is done with, finished. Like the stains and the scuffs and the marks of long gone tenants on my walls, there’s nothing left of my past but the cash we kept for emergencies in a book on our bedroom shelf in the Malibu house. One of his jokes, the book was a hollowed out copy of Movie Money: Understanding Hollywood's (Creative) Accounting Practices. 2nd Edition.