a corpse's nightmare; a fever devilin novel

8/4/2019 A Corpse's Nightmare; A Fever Devilin Novel

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This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events in this novel are

either the product of the authors imagination or are used fict itiously.

A CORPSES NIGHTMA RE.Copyright 2011 by Phillip DePoy. All rights reserved. Printed

in the United States of America. For information, address St. Martins Press, 175 Fifth

Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

www.minotaurbooks.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

DePoy, Phil lip.

A corpses nightmare : a Fever Devil in novel / Phil lip Depoy. 1st ed.

p. cm.

ISBN 978-0-312-69946-8

1. Devilin, Fever (Fictit ious character)Fiction. 2. Attempted murder

Fiction. 3. ComaPatientsFiction I. Title.

PS3554.E624C67 2011

813'.54dc23

2011026226

First Edition: November 2011

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1


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1

1.

The dead can dream; Ill tell you how I know.

Things had been quiet in Blue Mountain for so long that we

had all come to mistake inertia for contentment. An entire autumn

afternoon, for example, could be spent cataloging the images in

cumulus clouds. They rushed over the mountain on their way to

other, more important places, each with great mythic import. OnOctober 9th I noted three minotaurs moving in the clouds. I

made a list of their various postures. Doubtless a propensity for

classical literature and a bottle of French pastis combined to color

these perceptions. My time at the university had given me a love

of mythology. My friend Dr. Winton Andrews had given me the

pastis. Indolence had done the rest. I might have remained in that

happy state of suspended animation for the rest of my life. Ive

heard or read that some people have that sort of luck. Alas, lazy

autumn turned to bitter winter. On the 3rd of December, just be-

fore midnight, a total stranger came into my home and shot me as

I slept in my bed. I died before the emergency medical team could

find their way to my house.

But in that sleep of death, what dreams may come? To begin at

the beginning, childhood is of absolutely no consequence if its


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2 | PHILLIP DePOY

handled properly. All normal childhoods are exactly the same as

Tolstoys happy families: just alike. Unfortunately, my early years

were handled as strangely as anyone could possibly imagine.For reasons I can only guess, my mother always instructed me

that it was impolite to tell the truth. In any circumstance, she

thought she should make up something better. It was never a harm-

ful lie. In fact, it was generally a lie that was meant to improve a

situation.

She would say, What a splendid looking dress! no matter what

the thing looked like. Or: These are the most delicious Brusselssprouts Ive ever eaten. (Clearly the oxymoron of placing the

words deliciousandBrussels sproutsin the same sentence needs little

comment.)

The worst lies were about me. My son? Hes a fine, normal,

average boy. We didnt really name him Fever, it just sort of hap-

pened.

I knew I was neither normal nor average. My IQ tested at 186;I liked the poetry of Wallace Stevens and the music of French

Middle Ages at age eight; I had my first sexual encounter with a

girl when we were both nineit was wonderful.

I also may have had an angelic experience when I was eleven.

So while mothers application of the word fi ne might have

appliedI wont judge thatthe words normaland averageseemed

out of the question.

To be specific, the IQ test was given three times to verify its re-

sults, the nine-year-old girls name was Alisa; the angel had no

actual form. My IQ has been a source of trouble for me ever since

I was tested. I never knew what became of Alisa, her family moved

away to New Orleans. The angel, on the other hand, visited me

againpossibly.

I first met the angel in something of an unusual way. I had read

that Einstein posited curved space by imagining he was riding

the Universe on a beam of light. I wanted to try the same experi-


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A CORPSES NIGHTMARE | 3

ment. It seemed a most obvious occupation for a Sunday morning

while my father was at church.

I remember quite clearly that I sat in a chair by the window inmy room, staring out at the morning sun. I was dressed in my

usual blue jeans and flannel shirt. The room was bare then, save

for a bed, a desk, and a Currier and Ives picture of a sleigh being

pulled over a bridge by two horses. Just as I was beginning to feel

light-headed from shallow breathing and concentration, the im-

ages of ordinary reality faded and there it was: the angel.

I saw a face that was not a face and it said, very softly, Do yourecognize me?

No, I think I said. Should I?

No should. Just is. I might have imagined that an angel would

proffer that sort of language.

I tried to focus on the face, but it kept changing. I dont under-

stand, I said.

We only have a moment together. It hovered like a mist out-side the window. Look through the things in the box behind the

clock on the mantel.

What things?

It shimmered. Theyre in the box behind the clock.

I dared not take my eyes away. What am I looking for?

Then the angel vanished.

Without hesitation, I flew down the blond wooden staircase that

led from the upstairs bedrooms. In those days all the rooms down-

stairs were, in fact, one big room. Bronzed oak beams framed the

entire place. The galley kitchen was small then, still to the right as

you came in the front door. There was a stone hearth wood-

burning fireplace to the left by the large picture window. The

quilts on the walls always seemed like church windows to me.

I went straight to the clock on the mantel. Behind it I found a

blue tin box. I didnt even think to question why Id never noticed

it before. It had a forest hunting scene embossed on its lid.


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4 | PHILLIP DePOY

In that box, I found the ingredients of several lifetimes.

The tin was old, nineteenth century, and had, I believed, once

held candies. I opened it as if it were some sort of present. Itcontained mostly papers and letters, some photospoems and

documentsthings that would prove quite puzzling for, really, the

rest of my life.

The most baffling object in the box was a photograph. Just as I

picked it up to examine it more closely, my mother appeared be-

hind me.

What are you doing? she demanded.I jumped because she startled me. Whatever she lacked in veri-

similitude, she more than made up for in stealth. She always had.

I spun around. She was wearing her print dress with the giant

blue roses on it, and a black cardigan with a collar. Her feet were

bare. Her hair was tightly coiled copper around her head. She

was smoking a cigarette.

I didnt hear you. I tried to hide the box, but it was no use.She stood over me. I said, What are you doing?

Im looking through the things in this box, I answered

calmly, as would seem to be obvious.

She stared down at me. Dont you get smart with me, buster.

Im not getting smart with you, Mother, I sighed. I already

amsmart. And please dont call me buster.

How about if I call you Smart Mouth?

Call me whatever you want to. I can tell a puzzle when I see

one.

A puzzle? she asked.

I held up the photo. It was an ancient sepia image of a young

woman in a bar, smiling for the camera. On the back of the

photo it simply said, Lisa, 1923.

My mother looked away. What is that?

Oh, I have a feeling you know what this is. I moved toward

her. It says 1923 on the back, but thats a picture of you if I ever


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saw one. You werent born in 1923. Your mother wasnt even born

in 1923.

Thats not me, she said weakly, using the same inflections shealways employed when she was making things up.

I dont see how it could be.

What do you want? she sniffed.

An explanation would be good, I answered.

She let out a sigh that I would remember for the rest of my days.

In it I could hear all her heartbroken, impossibly gargantuan

disappointmentin me, in my father, in an entire world that hadnot given her the things she richly deserved: normalcy, comfort-

able economics, and an escape from Blue Mountain. But all she

said was, Ill get the letter.

She went up to her room, and came back out a few moments

later carrying the letter as if it might explode. She handed it to me

and turned her back. I thought she was being overly dramatic, as

she was always wont to do.It was a plain envelope. It was sealed. On the front were the

words For Feverin keen script. Just touching the envelope somehow

made my fingers feel strange.

I opened. I unfolded the paper inside. I read.

Dear Fever,

If your mother has given you this letter, you must already suspect

something. Youre looking at some of the photographic evidence.

Maybe youve had an angelic visitation. Dont be alarmed.

Everybody has those. If you decide to pursue this matter, youre in

for quite a ride. If you fi nd out who the woman is in that

photograph, your life will change. Doesnt matter. Everything you

think you know in this life? None of it is real.

It wasnt signed.

I looked up at my mother. Who wrote this?


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6 | PHILLIP DePOY

She still had her back to me, but I thought she might be crying.

Did my father write this letter, I demanded, or my grand-

father?You dont know the person who wrote this letter, she mum-

bled, yet.

I set the letter in the box with the other foreign objects. Are

you crying?

She nodded.

I took a step closer to her. Why?

It doesnt matter.Then why are you crying?

Her voice got stronger. Dont do it, Fever. Dont chase after

answers to these things. Forget all about it. Just stay around Blue

Mountain and maybe work with me and your dad in the show

when the time comes for you to earn a living. You leave here and

go out in the big world: youre just asking for trouble and heart-

ache. You look for answers to this particular riddle, and youllfind out things about peopleabout the whole human condition,

in factthat you dont really want to know. You dont really want

to know just how awful everything can be.

I blew out a little breath. Thats just the sort of thing you say

that eggs me on.

She turned. What?

Maybe you dont realize it, I explained, but when you say

something like that, it makes me want to do the opposite.

She stuck her neck to the side. What are you telling me?

When you say no, Mother, I explained exasperatedly, it only

makes me want to find out what yes is like. You drive me crazy!

Dont pay any attention to this mess, Im telling you! Her voice

grew shrill. Why cant you just stay an ordinary human being?

God! You haveto realize that when you refer to me as an ordi-

nary human being,you are engaging in whats called wishful think-

ing. Im about as ordinary as wings on a turtle!


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And? She narrowed her eyelids. You never heard of a turtle-

dove?

God, God, God! I looked away. If you arent the mostexasperating person Ill ever meet, I dont want to go on living.

I see. She wagged her head. And you call me overly dra-

matic.

Where do you think I get it?

Brother! She tossed her hand. You cant blame everything

on me. Some things youre just born with.

Do you seewhy you make me crazy? I rolled my head tryingto untie some of the knots in my neck. Do you see what youre

saying? Whether I learned it from you or I inherited it genetically,

it still comes fromyou!

You blame me for everything, she said again, feigning weak-

ness. Well, fine, then! Go on! Chase the ghosts for all I care. Be

a freak!

And at thatand I recall this feeling quite clearly, even as anadultmy entire body and mind relaxed. With a miraculously

bizarre sense of what I was soon to learn could be called dj vu,

I answered her challenge.

Well, I announced, its good to know my true nature so early

in life.

At that she gave up, ascended the stairs a bit like Gloria Swanson

in Sunset Boulevard,went to her room and put on the Frank Sinatra

record of Angel Eyes. It was a deliberate dig at me. She thought

I ought to be more religious, more normal, more outgoingall

qualities that she seemed to think Sinatra embodied and I hated.

Sinatra was a good American; I was a bad boy.

I knew, even then, the heartbreaking aspect of my mothers de-

sires and accusations, lies and foibles, disappointments and fears.

They all stemmed from an attempt on her part, in the younger

days, to escape Blue Mountain. She and my father had both been

born in our little hamlet, but had once wandered awayin


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8 | PHILLIP DePOY

1961all the way to Atlanta. They always told me that they had

taken a journey toward spirituality and a dynamic sense of pur-

pose, something that everyone had then. Kennedy was in theWhite House, Civil Rights were on the move, young people were

speaking their mindsthe world was changing for the better and

forever. By the spring of 1963, everything in America was moving

in the perfect direction. The country was filled with beautiful

young people. Their ideology was beautiful. Even the president

and his wife were beautiful. Everything seemed to be headed into

the light at the center of the greatest century in human history.Thats how it felt.

Everything was opening up. Even the interior of the White

House was revealed. Previous first ladies had been shy about the

decor of their four-to-eight-year home, but Jackie Kennedy took

everyone on a tour of the placeon live television! She showed

everyone the young White House, where their president and his

smart, beautiful wife lived.In that year, 1963, my parents were crusaders. They helped to

arrange a folk-singing extravaganza on the steps of the Atlanta

Capitol building. They were already gearing up for Kennedys re-

election. They were Young Democrats. They had convinced no less

than Peter, Paul and Mary, Pete Seeger, and Joan Baez to perform.

Every song was the hammer of freedom. Every word was the

bell of justice. Every glance they shared was a song about love

between brothers and my sisters, all over this-a land. The feeling

in the air that spring was that all human beings could, with very

little effort, change the world for better, forever, and very soon.

They felt it was the most exhilarating sense of power and change

ever known to humankind.

Then, autumn came.

The presidentthe young beautiful president, the president

that would live forever, the president that gave everyone a feeling

of freedom and forward-moving idealismwas assassinated on


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national television. The gun exploded, blood erupted; they saw

the skull and brains fly everywhere. President Kennedy lay dead

in a Lincoln Continental.Also that year: Robert Frost died. Jean Cocteau died. Edith

Piaf died. Pope John XXIII died. A hurricane in Eastern Paki-

stan killed twenty-two thousand people. The entire world had a

shocked sense of loss. Suddenly all the events of life seemed greatly

random and inexplicably cruel.

It was no coincidence, my parents believed, that the popular

American drug culture got a significant boost after the Kennedyassassination. If the icon of hopes and dreams could be shot

through the head right in front of you, it was understandable that

you might want to search for alternate realities, other possibilities;

any means of turning away from the things that you saw.

My parents choicetheir act of turning awaywas to go

back to the strange carnival life they had known only two years

earlier with their odd traveling show. They went back to BlueMountain and resumed their deeply unusual lives. My father was

a world-class magician and my mother was his hypnotically beau-

tiful assistant. Together they were mesmerizing onstage, largely

because they seemed too etherealas if they werent entirely of

this earth. They picked right up where they had left off, almost as

if their dream of a better world had never happened. The Ten

Show, as it was called, turned out to be their calling. Once they

came home, they never looked back.

These events explain how I came to be born in Blue Mountain,

not a more metropolitan clime, the product of strange parents and

lost hope.

Whenever they told me these storiesand most of them came

from my mother in her cupsI always had the impulse to tell

them that they had not been paying attention. I thought they

should have realized that no one could alter reality. They couldnt,

as theyd dreamed, ever eliminate war, hatred, racism, sexism,


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10 | PHILLIP DePOY

governments, systems of economics, foundations of education,

and all strifenot just by loving. I tried to explain it to them, at age

eleven. I gave them the salient facts: (a) color television had becomethe single most popular form of entertainment in the world. After

10,000 years of human folklore, oral traditions, stories passed

from person to person with great reverence, suddenly came televi-

sion. Human interaction was quickly being removed from the

process. (b) Its not possible for the human mind to hang on to a

beautiful vision indefinitely. That vision changes in a very short

time. Everything changes. Its a key function of the human psyche:visions are meant to fade. (c) No one can alter reality. All you can

alter is your own perceptionsand not even that very well.

Which brings us back to the angel. It was very clear to me

when I saw the angel that God was in everything. For months af-

ter that experience I could see His Light emanate from trees and

rocks and hills and plains and water and air and most of all from

the glorious, loving, all-embracing countenance of every humanbeing around me. We were all very obviously one in God, I thought:

safe, blessed, and free. It was the most beautiful vision of life that

anyone ever had.

But it passed.


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a corpse's nightmare; a fever devilin novel

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