Backcast (5 page)

            
. . .
fiction is like a spider's web, attached ever so lightly perhaps, but still attached to life at all four corners . . . these webs are not spun in mid-air by incorporeal creatures, but are the work of suffering human beings, and are attached to grossly material things, like health and money and the houses we live in.

“What's so material about the houses we live in?” Towanda asked.

“Nothing in your case,” Viv replied. “I don't think double-wides count.”

Towanda narrowed her eyes. “Nice one. Too bad the only double-wide around here is your
ass
.”

Gwen Carlisle chuckled and drained her tumbler of Scotch. “I'm empty. Anybody else ready for a refill?”

Quinn held up her pilsner glass. “I'll take another one of those Backcast ales.”

Darien looked at her. “Was it any good?”

Quinn nodded enthusiastically.

Darien held up a finger. “I'll take one, too.” She looked at the white-haired woman, slumped on the sofa beside her. “How about you, Linda?”

Linda Evans shook her head. “I don't much care for microbrews—and I'm fighting a migraine. I'll stick with my Pellegrino.”

Gwen was on her feet. “Anybody else?”

Cricket MacBean held up her glass. “Oban. Two fingers.”

“Got it. Back in a jiff.” Gwen wandered off toward the bar.

“What I'm still unclear about,” V. Jay-Jay Singh asked, “is how we decide what to write about, and how those narratives will relate to each other?”

“That's the beauty of this approach,” Barb explained. “What you write about is what you write about. Because we're all women—and we're all lesbians.” she glanced at Towanda. “Or women
connected
to lesbians—it's ninety-five percent likely that our stories will overlap organically. We shouldn't have to script anything.”

V. Jay-Jay didn't look convinced. “I don't really subscribe to the view that anything about writing is organic. I've never been a ‘panster.' I don't think things just magically come together without an outline. We need a plan—something to write to. A grand design for how all of these narratives will fit together and compliment each other.”

“Well, I've never been called a panster before. But I guess I agree with Barb on this.” Darien turned in her chair to face V. Jay-Jay. “I don't know about you, but my story could pretty much write itself.”

V. Jay-Jay wasn't buying it. “Frankly, I don't relish the idea of revisiting my ‘story.' Some sleeping dogs should be left to lie in peace.”

“If that's how you feel, then why did you agree to come?”

V. Jay-Jay looked at Quinn. “I didn't say that I didn't want to participate—just that I was uncomfortable with an open-ended process.”

“Well. I, for one, work better without any confinement.” Cricket glanced toward the bar area.

Gwen was returning with the drinks.

“Okay, then—how about we do a combined approach?” It was clear that Barb was ready to move on. “How many of you would feel more comfortable working in teams, or writing to some kind of master plan?”

A few hands went up. Barb counted.

“Four. Okay.” Barb waited until Gwen finished distributing the refills. “How many of you feel comfortable developing your essays more organically?”

Quinn looked perplexed. Barb noticed her expression.

“On your own,” she clarified.

Four more hands shot up.

“That's eight.” Barb considered the remaining three authors who
had not indicated a preference for either approach. “So, you three who indicated no preference? What does that mean?”

“We can't commit?” Towanda offered.

“She wasn't talking about relationships,” Viv quipped.

Shawn smiled.

“Okay.” Barb made some notes on a pad. “That was easy. You three are now lodge sisters.”

“Do we get a flag and a song?” Viv asked.

Barb looked at her. “Do you need them?”

“No. But I've always wanted them.”

Barb rolled her eyes. “I'll see what I can do.”

“How about the rest of us?” Quinn asked.

“Gimme a second.” Barb made two more lists on her pad. “Okay.” She took off her glasses. “Here's what we'll do. I've divided you up into three teams based on your preferred work styles. I want team members to get together with each other at least once a day. I'll call us all back together a couple of times each week so the teams can share progress and talk about where we are. That will help me begin to get a handle on the direction of the physical aspects of the project.” She looked around the room. “Any questions?”

There were none.

“Okay.” Barb held up her notepad. “Here are the teams. Pansters: Darien, Quinn, Gwen, and Cricket. Outliners: V. Jay-Jay, Kate, Montana, and Linda. Pantyliners: Viv, Shawn, and Towanda.

Kate snickered.

“Pantyliners?” Shawn asked.

Barb looked at her. “You got a better term?”

Shawn thought about it. “I guess not.”

“Great.” Barb smiled at the group. “Ladies, start your engines.”

Essay 1

Hunters are not holy men.

That's what the Bible says. I guess this saying is kind of like the
CliffsNotes
version of the Jacob and Esau story. Do you remember that one? The great hunter, Esau, surrenders his birthright for a bowl of lentil stew. And Esau's brother, Jacob, later tricks their blind father into blessing him instead of Esau by covering his neck and hands with skin from a freshly killed goat.

I guess Esau was kind of a hairy guy.

Lord knows, we heard enough about Bible stories like this one every day. But as much as people in my family loved to talk about the Bible, not very many of them paid attention to the lessons it taught.

I lived my life trying to find ways to steer clear of being hurt. One thing my childhood gave me were lots of opportunities to practice my art. I got pretty good at it. I learned that if I distracted myself enough, I could get through just about anything without being scarred—at least on the outside. It was really a creative way to make the bad stuff happen to somebody else. After a while, it worked so well that I stopped feeling anything. I didn't really mind that, either. But, sometimes, I'd find ways to try and test that out—just to see where the boundaries were between numbness and pain.

One of the things I'd do was subject myself to things I was sure would scare me or creep me out. That's why
I agreed to go along when my uncle, another hunter, asked me if I wanted to watch him skin some rabbits he'd just shot. He'd been hunting with my grandfather that day. It was wintertime, and I guess rabbits were in season. Or not. It didn't really matter. They had a lot of their own land to tromp around on whenever they wanted to. And it wasn't like anyone would try to stop them.

He said it would only take a few minutes, so I pulled on my coat and followed him outside. I didn't bother putting my mittens on, since he said we weren't going to be out there for very long. But once I joined him on the wooden porch behind the house, I wished I had. It was still snowing, but not very hard. The air was frigid, and my breath swirled around in front of my face like a dense fog. I shoved my hands into the pockets of my cloth coat to try and keep them warm. The lining inside the coat was torn, but I twisted my hands up inside the wool fabric as best I could.

The rabbits were all bunched together in a big bucket that sat on the ground next to the steps. It was nearly dark, but I could see them all clearly. They were cottontails, and there were probably six or eight of them. They were stuffed into the bucket, headfirst. Their floppy legs drooped over the sides like wilted flower stalks. Splotchy bits of wet snow stuck to their dense, dark gray fur.

They looked like they were sleeping—all except for that part about being facedown in a tin bucket, pockmarked with tiny red holes from the .410 shells.

I tried to be tough and not show my uncle how scared and sick I suddenly felt. I really thought I was strong enough to watch this. After all, I knew where most of the meat my family ate came from. I'd just never gone hunting—I wasn't old enough yet. But both of my brothers had, and my sister had, too. In my family, it was what you did.

My uncle pulled the first rabbit up out of the bucket and held it aloft. Before I had time to prepare myself for what was about to happen, he took hold of one of its legs and twisted the skin beneath its foot until it tore and separated from the bone. Then he grabbed hold of the loose flap and yanked it free in one quick motion. The skin made a hissing sound as it peeled away from the tiny frame. There was no blood, but the warm, pink flesh he exposed glowed in the fading light. Steam rose off the small body as it hung there in the early night air, swaying in his grasp like the censer our priest waved over the altar during Mass.

I felt my insides begin to churn. I knew I was going to throw up. Why was this bothering me so much? My uncle wasn't paying any attention to me. He was working quickly now. He had his skinning knife out, and he was gutting the rabbit. When he laid the small, naked body down on the porch floor and took up a bigger knife to separate its head, I felt myself starting to sway. Suddenly, I was the rabbit—and it was my own naked body that lay there exposed to him—small and afraid. It was my warmth and innocence that were being torn away and discarded with the same, swift precision.

Rows of lifeless eyes stared up at me from the backdrop of cold, white snow. They were like the eyes that looked back at me from the dark windows of my upstairs bedroom, where I'd sit, hunched-up and vigilant through the long winter nights, waiting. Waiting to hear the faint creak of floorboard that would signify my own unveiling.

Inside the pockets of my coat, I clenched my hands into fists so tight I could feel my fingernails cutting into my palms. The blood felt warm and sticky as it filled up my palms. That helped. That worked. I could concentrate on that and not on the small heaps of fresh death that steamed on the cold ground at my feet.

I wanted to take up the discarded wads of fur and skin and wrap myself in them. Maybe then, like Jacob, I would be mistaken for someone else, too—someone bigger, wiser—without weakness or fear.

Instead, I stood and watched without speaking. And soon, the pain in my palms replaced my sickness and terror.

I had passed another test.

Hunters were not holy men.

But neither were the brothers who stole their birthrights.

2

Found Objects

“What the hell are those two crazy-ass white women doing?” Mavis blew out a chest full of smoke. It snaked out across the lawn in a meandering, white stream, headed toward the spot where Quinn and Montana stood together at the end of the dock. They appeared to be engaged in some kind of erratic activity that involved snapping long, whip-like poles back and forth at the sky.

Barb followed her gaze.

“Casting,” she explained. “Can I have one of those? I left mine in the room.”

Mavis handed Barb her pack of Camels. “Casting? What the hell is that?”

“It's a fishing thing.”

Mavis huffed. “They look ridiculous.”

“They
are
ridiculous.” Barb laughed. “But that's unrelated to casting.”

Mavis took another long drag off her cigarette. She slowly wagged her head from side to side. “She's really serious about this tournament thing, isn't she?”

“It appears so. She said she got a lead on a boat to borrow. Montana is helping her learn how to use some of the equipment.”

“Hell. Those look like the normal tools of her trade. I don't know why she'd need any help learning how to swing a damn whip around.”

“Those aren't whips. They're fly rods.”

“Say what?”

“Fly rods. Special kinds of fishing poles.”

“I don't know why you all can't just go bowling like normal people.”

“We
are
normal people.”

“Not where I'm from, you ain't.”

Barb raised an eyebrow. “Really? Maybe we should ask Marvin about that?”

“Maybe not.”

Barb laughed. It turned into a cough.

“You need to start tapering off on those things.”

“Why?” Barb cleared her throat. “It won't make any difference. I've been at it too long.”

“You don't know that.”

Barb looked at her. “Yes, I do.”

Mavis held up a hand. “Hey? Don't shoot the messenger, okay?”

“Forget about that. I've been wanting to talk with you about something else.”

“What?” Mavis already knew Barb pretty well, and spending a week with her in the cramped confines of a pickup truck during their cross-county drive bred even more familiarity. It was enough to make her suspicious.

Then again, suspicion was pretty much Mavis's first response to any kind of request. It made her day job as a bailiff in the San Diego jail a lot less eventful.

Barb was giving her that look. “Don't automatically say no.”

Mavis rolled her eyes.

“I'm serious. I know how you are.”

“Woman, you don't know jack shit about how I am.”

“I know enough to know that I want you to write one of the essays for my exhibit.”

Mavis was incredulous. “Are you crazy?”

“Not usually.”

“I'm not a writer.”

Barb shrugged.

“And we both know that I'm not like the rest of these bimbos, either.”

“I wouldn't call them bimbos.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I do.” Barb nodded. “But that doesn't matter. You have as much right to talk about your experience as they have to talk about theirs.”

“Suppose I don't
want
to talk about my experience?”

“Just do me a favor, and consider it. Okay? I think you have an important story that other people should hear—and I need a thirteenth essay for the show.”

Mavis didn't reply. She finished her cigarette, and ground out the butt against the sole of her shoe.

“Think about it,” Barb said. “That's all.”

Mavis ignored her comment. She was watching Quinn and Montana again. They really did look ridiculous—like a lesbian Abbott and Costello.

“Somebody's going to end up getting killed on that damn boat.”

“Why?” Barb asked.

“Cause piloting a boat ain't like riding a Harley.”

“And you know this because?”

Mavis looked at her. “I live in San Diego.”

“You know something about boats?”

Mavis shrugged. “I used to. Before I signed on with the PD, I worked on the Coronado ferry.”

Barb's eyes widened. “You drove a ferry?”

“Hell fuck no. You have to have about a zillion hours of time to be a ferry pilot. I was just a deckhand. But I know enough to know that you don't go roaring out, half-cocked, when you can't tell goddamned bow from stern.”

“Maybe you can help her out?”

Mavis looked at her like she was a creature from another planet. “Are you crazy?”

“I thought we'd already covered that?”

“No fucking way.”

“Why not?”

“Look at them!” Mavis waved a hand toward the dock. “They look like a preview of tomorrow's headlines.”

Barb laughed. “And you said you can't write.”

Mavis gave up. “There's no arguing with you.”

“I'm glad you agree.”

“I didn't say that.”

“I know. But it's a starting point for negotiation.”

“Crazy white woman.”

“Maybe. But I always get my way.”

Mavis shook her head and tapped out another smoke.

Barb held out her hand. “Give me another one?”

Mavis extended the pack. “These things will put us in an early grave.”

Barb gave her an ironic look.

“Don't say I didn't warn you.” Mavis handed her the lighter.

“I promise.”

“I have a feeling those words are gonna come back to bite me on the ass.”

Barb laughed and lit up another cigarette.

They didn't talk anymore. There wasn't any need to. They stood, and smoked, and watched as endless arcs of white light flashed across the sky behind a pair of swinging fly rods.

“Ten o'clock. Two o'clock. Cast.”

Montana kept repeating the same phrase over and over.

Quinn was pretty sure she had that much down.

“It's all about rhythm and syncopation,” Montana explained. “A lot like writing.”

“And sex?” Quinn leered at her. She was glad that Montana was the one who offered to help her out. Montana was pretty hot. She was tall, but had a compact frame. She reminded Quinn of one of those QVC garment bags that could fold up small enough to fit inside your wallet.

Quinn always did go for the boyish types. Lipsticks never did much for her. Especially lipsticks like Viv. Viv was just too sharp. She was all points and angles. Plus she had a voice like a cheese grater.

Montana gave a tired-sounding sigh. “Yeah. Like
sex
. Now concentrate. Ten. Two.
Cast
.”

“Aren't these poles too skimpy for bass?”

“You won't use these poles in the tournament. They're just for practice.” Montana shook her own pole so its tip danced back and forth. “You know? So you can learn how to cast?”

Quinn took the hint and tried it again. It seemed to go pretty well. The line sailed out and the fly skipped across the water a nice distance from the dock. A lone kayaker, out for a midday paddle, shot them a concerned look when he heard the soft splash near the side of his boat.

Quinn was pleased. Maybe she was starting to get the hang of this? Just like she was starting to get the rhythm of how the dock kept bobbing up and down beneath their feet.

“How was that?” she asked.

Montana shook her head. “More like nine, six, hurl.”

Quinn lowered the pole and looked at her. “Hurl?”

“Yeah. You tossed that line about halfway to Mt. Mansfield.”

“Where's Mt. Mansfield?” Quinn looked toward the small island that was about two miles away from where they stood.

“No.” Montana touched her on the elbow before pointing off toward the blue-green horizon. “Over there.”

Quinn could see several ranges of mountains. They didn't look as big or imposing as the Adirondacks that framed the view on the other side of the island. These looked—softer. More like they'd been worn down to a size that fit the landscape better.

She squinted her eyes. “Which one is Mt. Mansfield?”

“That big one in the middle. The one that looks like a man's profile.”

Quinn was pleased. If she really managed to cast her line halfway to that, she had to be doing it right.

She turned to face Montana. “Isn't that the point?” The sun was glinting off Montana's short, blonde hair. It looked like the top of her head was glowing.

“No.” Montana shook her head. “The
point
is to exercise control, not power.”

“I don't get it.”

“Clearly.”

It was Quinn's turn to sigh. “You said you'd help me out with this.”

“I
am
trying to help you out. Fishing is about patience and finesse—not speed and force.”

“How come you know so much about this?”

“Because I grew up in Missoula and spent my summers on the Blackfoot.”

Quinn blinked. “Am I supposed to know what that means?”

Montana narrowed her eyes. “Ever seen the movie
A River Runs Through It
?”

Quinn shook her head.

Montana took a deep breath and let the air out slowly. “Tell me again why you want to do this?”

“Fish?”

Montana nodded.

“I don't care anything about fishing. I just want to win this tournament.”

“But you can't separate the two.”

“Sure you can.”

Montana was staring at her like she was the blue light special at K-Mart. Quinn didn't mind. She got that a lot. “I guess that doesn't make much sense to you?”

“Not really, no.” Montana stared out across the water for a few moments, then looked back at Quinn. “In one week, this lake is going to be choked with professional anglers from all over the country. And they'll have every single advantage—the fastest boats, the best tracking equipment, the most expensive tackle, and hundreds of hours of tournament experience. And every one of them will have the same objective: to bag the biggest, fattest fish they can flush out of hiding, and take home that prize money.”

“That's my goal, too.”

“Yeah, but, see? That's the
point
, Quinn. To do this, you have to know how to
fish
.”

“Junior knows how to fish.”

“I thought you said that Junior was just going to ride along on the boat?”

“Well.” Quinn smiled at her. “You know how to fish.”

“Me?” Montana pointed a finger at her own chest.

Quinn nodded.

“Nuh uh.
Forget it.
I am not getting on that damn boat with you.”

“Why not? It'll be fun.”

“It'll be suicide.”

“Oh, come on. Quit listening to Viv.”

“While I do agree with you that Viv is pretty much a pompous windbag—when it comes to this, I happen to agree with her.”

Quinn huffed. “This is a goddamn conspiracy.”

“I'm just trying to get you to see reason.”

“The only reason I see right now is
no
reason. As in, there's
no reason
why I don't have as good a shot at winning this thing as the next person. So what if the other people in the tournament have better or faster boats—or more ‘experience' whipping these stupid rods around at exactly ten and two o'clock?” Quinn paused in her tirade. “I really want this. I don't understand it, and I'm not sure I have to. I just know that this—thing—feels different to me. Not like anything else.” She sighed. “Haven't you ever felt that way about something that nobody else understood?”

Montana didn't reply right away.

“Well?” Quinn asked again.

“Sure. Of course I have.”

“Does that mean you'll keep helping me?”

“Quinn. This is a lost cause. I couldn't teach you even half of what you'd need to know to compete in this tournament. And it's less than a week away. Besides,” she made an oblique gesture toward the lawn behind them, where a team of authors sat on white chairs that had been arranged in a semicircle, “we're supposed to be here to write—not to fish.”

“Why can't we do both? The tournament only lasts three days. And it ends each day at one-thirty.”

“Yeah, but you have to get out there and practice. Learn the lake. Learn the equipment.” Something unreadable flickered across her face. Quinn was pretty sure that meant she'd thought of something new. “Please tell me you know how to swim.”

Quinn shrugged.

“Jesus.”

“Hey, I don't plan to fall off the boat.”

“Nobody ever
plans
to fall off a boat, Quinn.”

“Well, what if I wear some of those floatie things?”

“Floatie things?”

“Yeah, you know. Like kids wear at the pool?” She extended her arm and displayed her wrist. It was nicely wrapped with a faded blue tattoo of concertina wire. It was also the size of a coffee can. “Floaties.”