I tossed the mammoth book onto my desk. It was so ridiculously fat and heavy, even in paperback, that momentum carried it right off the edge. It sailed into Furio’s doggy bed and clipped the edge of his skull. He woke with a yelp and skittered onto the hardwood floor, sliding and scrabbling comically.
I am convinced that corgis can’t look serious doing anything.
“That’s good,” I mumbled around the toothbrush protruding from my mouth. I crouched and smoothed a hand over Furio’s head. “Are you okay? Sorry about that. Blame Caleb Bright and his encyclopedic novels.”
I rinsed my mouth in the bathroom and hurried back to the desk. I leaned over my laptop and typed out the line—I am convinced that corgis can’t look serious doing anything—and considered the blog post I would build around it. I could make it cute-funny. I could include pictures of Furio’s antics. I could even take it toward the serious-sentimental, touching on the real companionship dogs offer.
“Everyone can relate to that. Dogs. Pets. Non-judgmental companions. And they need us.” I was typing furiously, adding snippets to the document and mumbling to myself as I did. “They need us for basic survival. Food, water. Hell, we take them out to poop. We take care of them. It’s a bonding thing. Pets are like infants that never grow up. Forever children. We love them for that.”
I paused and grinned. Barely a week ago, Furio had found and consumed some sort of vine-like weed in the backyard. The eating of it apparently hadn’t been a problem, but when it came time for the plant to pass, he couldn’t get it out. He had crouched pitifully, a fragment of poop hanging from his behind, shuffled forward and crouched again, and rubbed his butt along the grass, all to no avail.
I had finally noticed his predicament when I heard him whimpering. I had tried coaching him through it, kneeling at his side and patting his rump. “You gotta push,” I had told him. “It’s just poop. You can do it.” But he couldn’t do it, and his big black eyes were damp and he was frightened.
So, it had quickly become evident that I needed to assist my dog by manually extracting the plant from his butt. And I had done it, and he had been so grateful afterward, licking my face and tearing around the yard.
Something passed between us, I typed, something that can only pass between a man and his dog. We had endured the vine-poop together, and we weren’t ashamed. We were stronger, braver—
“Weren’t you supposed to leave fifteen minutes ago?” Nicole appeared in the doorway. She was holding a hanger with an ironed dress shirt and frowning. “Why was Furio crying? What happened?”
“Caleb Bright almost took him out.” I fetched the novel from the floor and plopped it on the desk. “I’m ready. I’m going.” I closed my laptop and tucked it under my arm, and I patted my keys and wallet.
“Did you finish that?” She eyed the book. “Is that what you’re wearing?” She eyed my shirt. It was a graphic tee with a pixelated sword above the caption I DON’T WORK OUT, I LEVEL UP.
My girlfriend was ever ready to remind me that I dressed like a sixteen year old and that Authentic Vans and gamer T-shirts “look sad and desperate on a twenty-five-year-old man.” I narrowed my eyes. There was a blog post in that, for sure ... something about the way we conform to social standards as we age, about branding, systemization, corporate control of our—
“Mike?”
I blinked. “I’m comfortable. And what if he games? This shirt could strike up a ton of conversation.” I wrinkled my nose. “Besides, Oxford shirts make me sweat for some reason.”
“Could it be that they make you think of responsibility?” Nicole gave a longsuffering sigh. “So you didn’t finish the book?”
“Nearly. I skimmed the end. I’ll finish it tonight. And I did read the other two. We’re not going to talk about his books, anyway. This is an icebreaker day, get to know each other, schedule stuff. And I have a bunch of questions on here.” I tapped my MacBook. “I’ll be guiding the conversation.”
“Okay. Well, I put gas in the Jeep. Call me if you get lost.”
“I won’t get lost.” I displayed my iPhone.
“Red Feather Lakes is the actual boonies. Some roads might not be mapped.”
“Uncharted territory.” I kissed her cheek on my way past. “Adventure.”
Furio swirled around our feet, sensing my departure. I gave him a kiss, too.
Most days, Nicole was more like a mother than a girlfriend to me, but I couldn’t hold that against her. She kept me on track in so many ways. Over the past three years, she had helped redirect my explosive energy into lucrative outlets—streaming, blogging—and, under her more mature influence, I had made the leap from ramen-eating apartment-owner to sometimes-square-meal-eating co-homeowner.
Between my blog, stream, freelance journalism, and Nicole’s steady work for a pharmaceutical company, we did well. Very well. But it hadn’t always been that way. On one of our early dates, I had taken her to Q’doba and my card had been declined. Our food had already been prepared; it was supposed to be my treat. As I fumbled through my empty wallet, the cashier had taken stock of my situation. “Don’t worry about it,” he had finally said. Still, it had taken me a while to grasp that he was giving us free food.
In those days, my skill set had included playing computer games, having funny-stupid thoughts that I never wrote down, and being the fastest balloon tier at the party warehouse where I worked, and Nicole had stuck with me.
I guess that’s what couples mean when they talk about history. History is the shit that keeps meaning something when everything else starts to mean nothing.
The drive from Boulder to Red Feather Lakes took two hours, which gave me time to build up a solid case of nerves. It was one thing, being social and witty online with thousands of strangers watching me play games, and quite another thing to meet a high-profile author and to behave like a smart, educated adult.
And I was smart, and I was educated. I had graduated with highest honors and double majors in English and Journalism. After starting my blog—a slice-of-life, humor blog—I had branched into freelance feature writing, and my voice and degree had landed my work in a cluster of small magazines and papers. I’d built from there, and after a year I had managed to get a personal essay into The Atlantic, a similar piece in New York Magazine, and a commentary on the culture of PC gaming in The New Yorker.
Which brings us to Caleb Bright and the call I got five days ago.
My cell had rung at about four in the afternoon and, at the time, I was streaming a competitive Overwatch match. I had seven thousand viewers, which is high for my channel, and I was on a winning streak. Walking away from the match had meant losing a hard-won rank and pulling the plug on a majorly successful broadcast, but one doesn’t simply ignore an editor at The New Yorker.
“Shit,” I had said. “I hate to do this, bros, but I absolutely have to take this.”
The chat in my channel spammed sad faces.
I frowned, shut off my broadcasting software, and took the call.
The editor, Eliza Harel, had hastily explained that they (The New Yorker) needed a journalist (me) ASAP (in five days) for an important profile (Caleb Bright). The journalist who was supposed to write the profile had taken two months off for a family emergency, and the magazine didn’t want to shuffle dates or arrangements because the author was already “jumpy.”
“Jumpy how?” I had asked.
“He’s been out of the publishing scene for a few years. He’s leery of media. You’ll have to research all that. The thing is, you’re in his neck of the woods and we loved your writing in that video game article. We’re looking for—”
“It was PC games, not console—”
“Right. We loved it. We want that voice—young, inquisitive. All the profiles on this guy have been pretty stale. I mean, what is he doing now? Is he writing? What really made him stop? We think you can bring the outsider perspective.”
The outsider perspective. She had meant that I, a full-time streamer and computer game enthusiast, couldn’t possibly moonlight as a literary type. I was the second choice, the last-minute backup. But I was okay with that. The New Yorker had called me, soliciting a story. I was literary enough to know how huge that was.
We had talked specifics for about ten minutes and exchanged contact info, and then I’d had five days to read Bright’s three giant novels, a smattering of criticism, and a few of the stale profiles Eliza had mentioned.
I had also examined the most recent picture I could find online, which showed the author at a signing in 2010. He was tall and black-haired, with golden-tan skin and an unsmiling face. His eyes were dark and serious. Though he was in the process of shaking hands with a reader, he was glaring at whoever had snapped the photo.
“Jumpy.” I spoke into the silence of my Jeep. “He’s just jumpy, and people who feel anxious act mean, like cornered animals.” But I would show him that I meant no harm. I would approach slowly, hands up, and he would learn to trust me. He would tell me what made him laugh, what troubled him, why he had come to Colorado when all of his family lived on the East Coast, and why he had walked away from a tremendous literary career and disappeared into the blue.
Then I would write a profile so fine that major magazines would be begging me for articles for years to come.
(That quote about the best-laid plans is appropriate here.)
Despite Nicole’s fears, Google Maps had imaged all the roads leading to Caleb Bright’s house. I drove north, then west into the mountains, and I rolled down my window to let in the autumn air. It smelled like campfire. It was late September, the time when the aspens turn, and I would have been freezing without my jacket.
I toyed with first lines as I pulled up the long gravel drive.
In September, the road to Red Feather is paved with golden leaves ...
Too saccharine.
Caleb Bright lives off the beaten path ...
Cliche.
I'm sweating as I pull up to ...
No. Just no on beginning with bodily odors.
The first thing you see when you reach Caleb Bright’s property is the lake.
It was broad and clear and that day it reflected the glacier blue of the sky, a shade almost aquamarine, and the yolk yellow leaves of hundreds of aspen, which shrouded the hill and partially hid the house.
The log cabin style home melded into the countryside. I saw no other houses or docks around the lake, or anywhere in my field of vision, meaning the author must have owned everything I could see. The thought unnerved me. This was his domain and I felt small in that expansive landscape.
As I climbed out of the car and headed up the walk, I got the distinct sense that I was being watched. A motion at the window caught my attention. I glanced over and down I went, the ground rushing up, a starburst of pain exploding in front of my eyes.