The Sasquatch Hunter's Almanac (35 page)

Just as he was shaking out the last drops, the neighbor across the way opened the door for his newspaper.

“Good morning,” the man said.

He put on his glasses with one hand and gathered the paper with the other, then glanced up at Mr. Krantz. Mr. Krantz smelled the man's shift from a state of calm to a state of fear. His face, however, betrayed no emotion. His eyes roved over Mr. Krantz's giant, naked body down to his feet—one metal, one flesh—and then landed on the puddle that dampened a good swatch of the tan carpet. He murmured an apology and withdrew into his apartment, and Mr. Krantz decided that the man wasn't such a wimp, after all, as he would have guessed of him from other encounters. Other men might have shrieked or fainted or worse. This one, at the very least, remained calm.

Mr. Krantz finished shaking himself dry. He reentered the apartment, pulling the door shut behind him. He could smell the heaviness of his piss even through the doorway. It pleased him, despite the inevitable consequences: phone calls from the condominium's board of directors, who always fielded residents' complaints about Mr. Krantz's “shocking” behavior; high-pitched, shrieky arguments with Emily, who would wonder why on earth he'd done such a thing when he knew how much it embarrassed her. Those arguments were always short, but her pitch hurt his sensitive ears. It didn't matter. It was worth it, just to know that the hallway was dominantly marked. Besides, his wife's parents owned much of downtown Lilac City, so there would be no kicking them out, despite their neighbors' protests. And, despite the small annoyances, he was glad for their security. Overall, he liked living here.

After a breakfast of rare bison steak and two fistfuls of berries, Mr. Krantz walked to the Glow Health Spa in his broad overcoat, his hat drawn low over his eyes, moving fluidly along with only the faintest of limps. Other pedestrians parted for him with nary a glance, but a small child stared and pointed in disbelief.

“Look at him, Mama,” the boy said. “He's so big!”

Mr. Krantz didn't mind the attention. He could tell by the mother's scolding that she believed him to be a man.

“So rude, Horace,” she cried. “Really!” Then, to Mr. Krantz, “I'm sorry, sir, he's very young.”

Mr. Krantz smiled with his eyes, crinkling them at the edges. His mouth remained downturned. He nodded at the woman and then winked at the boy.

The woman tugged on the boy's hand. “Come along, Horace. Leave this nice man alone.”

“Bye, big guy!” the boy cried as Mr. Krantz resumed walking. “Have a great day!”

The boy reminded Mr. Krantz of Agnes's son, that smart, kindly child he'd met all of those long years ago. He had wanted to take the boy with them, but Agnes had said no, that it would be too unkind to the boy's father. Mr. Krantz had reluctantly complied.

But what did it matter now? He was to have his own son! He was certain Emily would have a boy. Mr. Krantz felt that things were going very well for him. He was blending in nicely, urination transgressions aside. He could go wherever he wanted now. He even sensed that he was circling in closer and closer to the doctor's whereabouts. It would be only a matter of time before they met.

Somewhere in town at this very moment, Mr. Krantz thought, the doctor was going about his own day, unaware that Mr. Krantz was looking for him everywhere. Mr. Krantz liked to think about this as he took in the sights of the town. He liked to think that they inhabited the same place, that one day they would literally bump into each other while rounding a street corner, and he liked to think of the doctor's face brightening with recognition.

A part of him still believed the doctor had set the trap, but Agnes had disagreed with him. The trap was too old, she'd said, too rusted. It had likely been left there by someone else.

Maybe she was right, Mr. Krantz granted, but it was the doctor's face, spectacles and all, that he pictured as he gnawed through his own anklebone to escape from those oxidized teeth. By that utterly desperate point, he had not eaten in more than two days, had sipped at the dew from the leaves but was otherwise tunneling toward death. The gnawing was less painful than he'd envisioned. Any pain was bearable after enduring the jaws of that rusted trap.

When the foot came loose, he dragged himself to Lost Creek and swallowed its glacial waters mouthful by mouthful. He managed to catch a fish. He sucked it down and believed in the moments following that he would die in relative peace.

But Agnes arrived. She'd been searching for him since dawn, walking slowly through the forest until she found him, drained and dying. No emotion—no disappointment or joy—crossed her face when she saw him. She merely dropped to her knees and began to address his wound. She did not ask what happened. She seemed to have her own notions about the whole business.

She urged him to stand and helped him to their cabin, which was not too far away. He limped there with her, gasping from the effort, leaning on her smaller frame. He was in agony but grateful.

He spent a week flailing on their cot. His wife nursed him as best she could. The rusty trap had poisoned his blood, or maybe it was the infection caused by the open wound, which she'd packed with handfuls of river mud. Beneath the dense grove of his fur, his veins blackened. Every infinitesimal movement pained him, from the blinking of his eye to the wiggling of his finger.

His wife disappeared for a full day, and he wondered if she'd abandoned him.

He didn't blame her. He would have done the same.

He thought for the first time how nice it would be to live as a normal man lived, in the city, with clean water that poured from faucets and a humming refrigerator filled with food. He could shave himself, he thought, could wear new clothes, could apply strong cologne. If he lived, he told himself, he would give it a shot. Urban living! Agnes had told him of a big city not far to the west, Lilac City, she called it, and he liked the name. He could move there and become a city dweller. The thought made him smile into the night of his pain. He closed his eyes and felt hope.

Agnes returned. She was wearing the shawl she always wore when she (rarely) descended into Rathdrum. She frowned over him, stuffing a foul-tasting pill into his mouth. She seemed to have aged ten years in the last week, and Mr. Krantz wished he had the strength to reach up and touch her lined face. She was a good wife. His friend, even if he didn't want her anymore. He accepted the pill and later, after sleeping, accepted another.

The antibiotics worked quickly. Mr. Krantz began to feel like himself again. He took short, awkward hops around the cabin, then deeper into the forest, and then down the hill to Rathdrum, gripping trees for balance. Agnes encouraged him. She lifted an old crutch from a pawnshop and pressed it on him. He shoved it under his armpit for support, and with practice he regained his speed. He was nearly as fast as his old self but much noisier now. The noise bothered him, but it also gave him something to focus on. He listened to himself moving through the forest, listened to his panting and shuffling as he descended from forest to town.

This was the onset of his restless phase, when he began studying the habits of everyday people.

He wanted to understand them and learn how to blend in with them. He knew Agnes would have nothing to do with his plan. He kept it a secret. He waited, and watched, and plotted.

Years passed. Eventually he met Emily, just outside town at a ribbon-cutting ceremony for Rathdrum's newest deluxe condominiums, which were owned by her parents. The condos boasted a view of the forest. She had wandered away from the crowd to the trees, where he presented himself to her, naked: crutch, healed stump, and all. Rather than run away screaming, she had smiled at him, impressed and playful. He drew her up under one arm then and there, ferrying her through the woods back to his cabin while she giggled and fretted. She was a nice enough woman, sheltered, pretty, and bored with life in Lilac City. She fell in love with what she called his “sense of adventure.” She did not, however, love the woods or the little shack. She soon demanded that they live in Lilac City. He agreed. She demanded that he wear good clothes, learn some manners, eat with cutlery, live like a real man. He agreed to that, too. He appreciated the challenge.

They left a note for Agnes and went to live with Emily's parents while their new condo was being remodeled for them. The parents received them both with open arms.

“A real man's man,” her father said, clapping him on the back. “Her last husband was a real talker. Couldn't shut the man up. But you, you're a humble sort. I appreciate a silent man.”

“And attractive, to boot,” Emily's mom said, waggling her glass of gin in the air in a sort of toast to him.

Mr. Krantz stood with them on their ample lawn, with its glittering fountains and cylindrical topiaries, enduring the attention. He wore a polo shirt and a pair of trousers, specially sewn for him by a local seamstress. The clothes felt clean and comfortable, and he really didn't mind them. Beside him, Emily snuggled against his arm and beamed; he could smell the fertility in her, and he thought about how well-fed his children would be.

Soon after that, Emily's parents told them the condominium was finally ready for them, and Mr. Krantz was relieved to regain some privacy.

*   *   *

A
T THE DEPILATION
appointment, the dermatologist entered the room and stood over Mr. Krantz's prepped body. She warned him to brace himself.

“This is the painful part,” she said, “although I probably don't need to remind you.”

This was his second removal. The dermatologist had suspected seven or eight appointments might be necessary in total, given “the severity” of his “hair problem.”

Emily had been with him then. She had said cheerfully, “Whatever it takes. He can handle it.”

She loved him without hair; she said that she could now see “the real him.” It was shocking to him to see himself in a mirror, smooth as a stone, and pale. The world was so much colder without his hair; he wore the clothes now not because it was expected of him but because he needed them to stop the shivering. Eventually, the follicles would be permanently damaged: The hair would never grow back. It would be a vanished part of himself, a premature death.

Agnes would hate to hear of this. She would look at him as if he were crazy.

What would Emily do about their son if he was hairy like his dad? Would he be expected to undergo the same laser-beamed torture?

The dermatologist pulled up a stool and pressed a few buttons on the machine beside her. She took up the wand and bent over him, preparing to laser his hair roots into oblivion. He hated the feel of the gooey cream all over him; it smelled terrible, too, of the most unnatural chemicals. His whole body tensed now, remembering the pain of the last treatment.

It was worth it, he reminded himself. That was his mantra now. It was all worth it.

The woods would always be there if he wanted them, once he finished what he'd come here to do. But the more he changed, the less the woods would accept him. He could feel both the pain and the comfort of this irrevocable shape-shifting, and he hated and lusted for it both.

He gritted his teeth as the laser wand approached the top edge of his thigh.

He closed his eyes and thought of the doctor then, much as he'd thought of him when he'd lain in the woods all of those years ago, bleeding to death in that rusted trap.

It was worth it, to create a better world for himself, for his son, a world without such a man.

He'd endure this pain, too.

He'd become a man, whatever it took.

Then he'd find the doctor.

I'll find him,
Mr. Krantz thought, feeling his phantom toes curl. He breathed in the smell of his own scorched flesh.
I'll find him and I'll kill him dead, dead, dead
.

 

2006

 

 

PRODUCE THE MONSTER

Nearing the end of his life, realizing with a frantic certainty that he might never locate Mr. Krantz, Eli became disagreeable; he became, as Vanessa teased him, a grumpy old man.

He refused to speak at conferences anymore. He stopped trying to find funding for SNaRL. He paid for everything with his own retirement money, and Vanessa allowed him to do so. Crippled by a sloping spine and weak hips, Eli bought an ATV. It improved his mobility, but his visits to the woods felt more intrusive. He rattled through the forest loudly, wearing a headlamp, his father's rifle in hand. He glared into the darkness and waited for Mr. Krantz to appear. He never did.

After Jane Goodall expressed interest in Sasquatch research, there was a flurry of reluctant interest in cryptozoology. A few local journalists contacted Eli for comment. Despite his grumpiness, he did agree to an interview, if only to communicate his frustration with the whole business.

“And what will you do,” a woman, some reporter from
The Lilac City Monitor,
had asked him, “when you find your Sasquatch?”

They sat in his pristine home office, facing each other over the neat surface of his desk. Cups of coffee steamed before them, untouched. He motioned at the rifle leaning against the wall, a beautiful mahogany Winchester 1894 lever-action .30-30, a beloved gift from his father.

“I'll shoot him,” Eli said.

The journalist bolted upright from her chair. “Kill it?” she cried.

“Shoot him dead,” he confirmed. “Irrefutable proof. An actual corpse is the only way to prove its existence. It's the only way.”

The woman poked at him with a few more questions, but she was mostly finished. She primly tidied up her materials, her notebook and her unused pen and her recording device, trying to seem calm. Eli watched her gravely. He pictured her eager return to a miserable newsroom cubicle, where she would immediately type out her scathing, mocking, factual little article. She was so excited that she didn't even say goodbye.