a corpse's nightmare; a fever devilin novel
TRANSCRIPT
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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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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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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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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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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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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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