Author Hunted - fiction

A story about what might happen when characters are truly alive.


‘What are you willing to sacrifice for your own writing?’ I remember that question from the first session of my MA program in creative writing. Too many years ago. Too many course sections of being an instructor instead of a writer. Ironically, I had thought then that I had the answer.

I can tell you when it began. A laundry basket leaking underwear: the sleeve of my favorite blue shirt, striped towels; a brown paper kitchen garbage bag damp-welted and sagging; the patina of dust on my picture frames and shelves. Sunlight spilling through the spider webs in the basement. Clocks running faster than any list of chores, and that perpetual sense of not enough time. I remember I pushed aside an empty detergent bottle, thudded upstairs to fold towels, and then thumped my way back to the basement for the next load (wanting to put something in the dryer and discovering there’s an old load petulantly wrinkling inside). My mind was on seventy other things, until I reached the second last step and saw him standing next to the furnace, arms folded across his chest, chin tilted downward. Waiting for me as a hunter. Frowning just a little. But then that’s the way I always thought of him: frowning just a little, even when he smiled.
I wasn’t surprised, because all day I had had that sense of being watched, someone in the next room, someone just around the corner, someone whose breathing whispered in my ears.
I could feel his awareness, feel him scanning and listening, listening and waiting. If there were anything within half a mile (maybe a mile) he was aware of it. That’s how he had managed to stay alive.
The instant I became aware of him, he acknowledged me. He didn’t say anything, but his eyes were enough to say what he meant. He didn’t reach to touch me, or even gesture. But that, too, was Bruce.
I stood still, not breathing, holding the basket of rumpled laundry, ready to step toward him. Before I could, I woke up. My hand was folded into the palm under my pillow, but the only fingers there were mine. No stranger. I had seen him, felt him, felt him watching me, and he was more real than the pillow covering my hand of the blanket tangled around my feet. I winced: because of all the ways to end a story, ‘It was a dream,’ was perhaps the most trite; then I winced because it was a dream. He was certainly more real than anyone or anything else in the room. In my life.
I thought about Bruce while I dressed (pondering trite), and began a load of laundry (no, there was no figure next to the furnace, and besides that space was occupied with dusty cartons). I stood at the bottom of the steps, studying the place, willing him to have been there. I thought of him as I sat at the kitchen table, prepping classes, but really wondering exactly what it was all supposed to mean, since according to one writer everything in dreams means something and ‘every figure in the dreams no matter who it is should be interpreted as yourself.’ I’d like to be tall, muscled, and silent instead of short, rounded, and too often at a loss for words. I’m not sure about exchanging the female for male, but maybe in dreams that’s not significant.
I thought on Bruce’s significance (as well as his face) while I drove to class, and then, working to explain the difference between denotation and connotation to ten students who didn’t care and five who did, put people who appeared in dreams aside.
It was only when I settled into the squeaky chair in my office (a desk and chair behind a partition from someone else’s desk and chair), poured a cup of coffee from the community pot, and opened a package of cookies in my personal drawer, that the sense of everything not quite under control resurfaced. Stronger. There was nothing in or under control. I owed Mother a call; I owed the 8 a.m. section their essays papers, preferably graded; I owed mid-term grades; luckily I didn’t owe the IRS, but they were about the only ones in the black.
“Too bad,” I said aloud, rattling the cellophane under my fingers while I used one elbow to keep my place in the text book I was reviewing. “I’ve got too much to do.”
“Everybody has too much to do,” Deline answered me. “That’s why we talk to ourselves, to keep track of it all.”
“Hey.”
“Hey, there.”
“Grab a cup if you want some coffee.”
“The cookies were calling me,” dropping her books onto my desk.
“Help yourself.” Then because it was no use hiding what would eventually be wormed from me. “I saw him. Again.” I used the cookie for a bookmark and shrugged to show her it was no big deal.
“Tell me about it.”
“Typical dreams until he showed. Laundry overflowing in the ‘chute, scrambling late for work, ignoring the cleaning. Deline, I could sell the dust bunnies I’m raising. There’s got to be a market in allergy research for them if I could only find it. Or the time to find the market.
“I love all the people in my life, I love all my students this semester – yes, I do, Deline, don’t shake your head at me - and stop smiling. I love the ones who need me to stay after class every session because they missed last class and need extra help. I love the ones who can’t turn in an assignment because their third grandma died, and they had to go to a concert. I love the leaves that need to be raked from under the six trees in my yard, and the spiderwebs that need to be cleaned from my basement ceiling. I love the three faculty committees I got drafted to serve on, and the charity that wants me to go door to door to collect money for them. I love the publishing rep who keeps finding new things I should add to the anthology I’m doing to make the school look good, and the department chair who keeps agreeing with the rep. But all I wanted to do in the dream was to get away from all the wonderful people in my life, just for a little while. I guess, and this is the hokey part, to simply stand there, with him.“
“So who doesn’t want to get away? And some of those are kinky loves, if you ask me. Loving a guy is okay. Nobody enjoys serving on committees.”
I chose not to answer the second part of her statement because it was too correct. How many times did I use “love” and how many times did I mean it? “I can’t. He wasn’t like the exam you forgot to study for; he was real. It was the character, but there was also – and this is the weird part I can’t tell anyone but you – sexual angle there.”
“Honey,” Deline answered, “It’s not weird. Who else could satisfy you better than a man you made up yourself? I’ve had partners who should have taken lessons from the people I created in my stories.”
“It feels as though, each time I walk ‘round a corner, that he might be on the other side.”
“Think of him as one of your students. He’s annoying, so correct him with red pen.”
I tried to pull air into my lungs, but they refused to expand. “He won’t. He’s too intense; he doesn’t even smile, just a grimace. I didn’t make him up to be nice; I made him up to satisfy plot balance.”
“A sense of humor isn’t a non-negotiable requirement in a man.”
“Deline, be serious.”
“Amy, lighten up.”
“I’m trying. It’s just …”
“Serious,” Deline finished for me. “Okay, what do you want me to do? Maybe you shouldn’t be living alone.”
“Thanks, Mom. Finding Mr. Right is not the universal answer.” I gulped. “Mom. I need to call Mom. She’s on the list.”
“What list?”
“The list of things I should have done over the weekend.”
“It’s Wednesday.” Deline folded her arms across her chest. “You keep thinking of him because you want to finish the book. You want to work on your own writing rather than put together an anthology that will make the school look good.”
I lifted my palms in that gesture of futility. “I want to do the anthology. Sort of. It was my idea before the publishing rep and the department and a few other people began making suggestions. I want to do my own writing, for me. I can do both, actually. Just budget my time. Layers. Like paring an onion.”
“Onions make people cry.” She stared at me. “And you want to call your Mother. If you don’t, it’s going to get worse.”

Three more weeks of the eighteen-week semester. I corrected four sets of papers, listened to fifteen old excuses and one new one from students missing work, listened to my neighbor complain about the weeds in the lawn, attended two committee meetings and fell asleep in only one of them. I concentrated on the 806 deadlines in my life, and forgot about a visitor in the basement. Life continued normally until the morning I looked through the kitchen window into a grey misty morning, and met his eyes.
“I saw him last night,” I said slowly, needing to tell someone, half wishing the someone weren’t Deline. She knew too much of his history, and history made him real. “I think it was him, no, I’d bet money it was him. Damn, Deline, I know it was him. But a younger version.”
“I think you need to tell me about it.”
‘I’ve got a department chair looking for me, since I haven’t turned in mid-term grades by deadline.” Deline swallowed the last chunk of her cookie and leaned back in the chair. Some things were more important than deadlines.
“I was at home, standing in the room where I do my writing, looking out the window. There was a man in the yard, and my first impression was that he stood so still because he had a dog on a leash. I was annoyed: why was some guy letting his dog poop right there, in the yard, right outside my window. Then I noticed that he was wasn’t dressed.”
“Nude?”
“Except for a loin cloth sort of thing.” I swept a hand down my side trying to give her the right impression. “Not naked, flaunting himself, just not wearing many clothes. He didn’t care. I guess that’s almost nude. I looked at him, and he turned from whatever he was watching and stared at me.”
“How?”
“Sort of annoyed. Waiting.” I sighed again. “Waiting. As though I were slow at understanding.”
“Were you?”
“Since I was not sure what he wanted, maybe I was.”
“And you’re sure this is Bruce? Was Bruce? Not a new character, you know, some variety?”
I looked at the wall above Deline’s head and wondered if I should scream. I decided a scream would alert people I was hiding in my office. “Yes, I’m sure. But a younger one. Maybe, oh, twenty-five years old. Five years younger than he is, in the story I’m not finishing. His body wasn’t scarred up yet. Face not as lined. Strong, but not where I had him.”
“You could decide he’s a one-dimensional character. Moody, strong, dark and sensual. Flat.”
“No, that is not how he is.” But at the same time I wondered if I did know how he was. Is. I certainly hadn’t anticipated his coming to find me. Didn’t he have something more important, some one more important, to chase? Like a female lead? Some villains? Was this a plot weakness – a character preferring the author? Or just a weak in the head writer?
“Time to wake up,” Deline cajoled. “Amy back to the faculty offices. Return, Amy.” She snapped her fingers, frowning.
I reached toward a cookie. Shook my head, and drew my hand back empty. Folded my hands in my lap, decided they were clenched not folded, and carefully opened them across the fabric of my pants.
“It’s okay, Amy. What you imagine could be perfectly normal. You’re working an overload this semester, trying to finish the novel for publication, and editing that anthology.”
“I’m not finishing the novel, remember?”
“You’re stressed because you’re busy.”
“Duh. Okay, I’m busy. But maybe I’ve added ‘crazy’ to my schedule, just to amuse myself. How many people think about going off with a person they created.”
“You’re not,” Deline said sharply. “You’re just thinking about a character you made up, a long time ago, for a story you haven’t finished. That’s why he’s around: it’s your own to-do list. Face it, honey: The way you’re going, you might never finish it. Your mind is telling you what you already know.”
“That’s not how it feels.”
“You have a fantastic work ethic.” She paused, then, “Who needs another anthology, anyway? You see Bruce, but what you are actually seeing is yourself telling yourself what is important.”
“Thanks, Deline.”
“No thanks necessary. Listen, I’ve love to hear more about these men without clothes, but I have a class. If any deans come hunting for late grades, I’ll say I never saw you.”
I sat back in the chair and considered Bruce. This whole thing wasn’t about ‘men without clothes,’ it went deeper. He wasn’t mean or vindictive. Not haunting me. Or hunting me. It was a healthy relationship. If I had to put a color to it, I’d say green. Real. I sighed. That was part of my problem. What, indeed, was reality?
I played with the folders stacked in front of me. Deline was probably right. What I needed was to find a temporary boyfriend, someone who didn’t match any of Bruce’s pattern: short, pudgy, friendly, and undemanding. Talkative. Noisy enough that his babble would chuckle and gurgle its way over, under, around, and through the other man. Just like a good preposition and about as valuable to a life sentence.

I decided that since I could never hope to finish all the projects in my life, professional and personal [who needs to get along with neighbors after all, and mothers will understand], and that I did have a committee meeting in twenty-five minutes on how students could better use technical resources to develop interpersonal skills, I might as well escape the building for a short walk. Students do it all the time; why shouldn’t instructors? It was a glorious day with a cool wind. The woods bordering two sides of campus were deep, shadowy green. Sunlight made yellow freckles on the paths beneath the trees until the wood’s closed those paths in shadow. The sky was bright, and there was the smell of rain coming from far away. I sat on a bench in the sunshine at the edge of the pond, still watching the woods on its far side, baking my brains, and feeling the false peace that comes from desperately ignoring deadlines before they overwhelm. When my feet got cold, I looked down and noticed the sun had moved westward enough to put them in shadow. Checked my watch. Well, there were two wasted hours. No anthology progress. No committee meeting; wonder if they missed me. But no Bruce, either.

It didn’t feel horrible, being irresponsible. It felt sane. I decided it was safer to decamp to the library. If a fellow committee-ite were looking, he would check the faculty offices. I could work off some guilt before I was found, and the best place to do that was the library.
I scuttled furtively to a carrel in a dark corner of the library, plopped down the stack of folders. Sighed. Thought about Bruce and how his visits had lightened my days. “I don’t have time. It’s a character I created. I made him.” I held my head between my hands so my eyes had to look at the folders.
A girl in a black, V-necked sweater moved to the computer cubicles. One of the student aides squeaked past with a cart of books. Across the room, someone crumpled a piece of paper. The turnstile clicked another patron into the campus library.
My hands moved all by themselves out of my hair and into the stack of folders: class folders, notes for the next lecture, telephone messages to be returned, timeline for the anthology selections which would become a manuscript for the publisher, and then a book that would help our school look good.
If anything was insane it was the decision to work here instead of the faculty offices where it was quieter and more controlled. Or at home – no, wrong. If I were at home I’d be cleaning. I’d be figuring out which of the hundred home chores I should have finished last week. Or hoping I didn’t see him around a corner. Home was not an option if I wanted to finish anything by deadline. The offices were not an option unless I wanted to have a lovely afternoon talking with my peers. The library was not either, but it made the most sense of the trinity. I blew the stale air out of my lungs and tapped my fingers on the top folder: Alone. All grown up and afraid to be alone, was that what it had come to?
I was a target. Every time I had been a successful target, I was alone. Until the hunt was called off, I had two goals: finish the anthology / finish the semester, and not be alone. Call Mom. I might as well finish writing his story too while I was finishing off things. Maybe I could write him into exile. Or kill him. But I didn’t want to kill him. I didn’t want to exile him, either.
One of the printers began its pre-birth whine. If home was quiet, there would always be someone in the library: shuffling books, whispering study carrels, running notes through the copier. Ironically the library was where I first got the idea for him one fall afternoon. Life caught up with you. Except it wouldn’t. Going to find a nice dull person. Going to find a faculty person I hadn’t met already, someone, anyone. I’m going to do it, Bruce. Then we’ll get out our matching red pens, and edit you out.
I looked grimly around the edge of the carrel, over the short stacks, to the windows. Sloping lawns, a pond, and surrounding the campus that green belt of woods. A perfect place to lose myself. A perfect place: just me, a bunch of students, and a few thousand deadlines. And next semester it would start all over again.
I made working motions, doodling notes, shuffling papers in the ‘anthology’ folder. The afternoon slid toward later. Shadows began seeping from under the stacks, battling the fluorescent lights.
There was movement. I looked up and saw all the usual things. Across the room someone laughed at a joke. Someone ran the copy machine. A girl shoved books onto the shelves. Beyond her shoulder, in the afternoon shadows, there was deliberate movement, silent motion.
It was the eyes I noticed first: dark, dark brown that looked like black, then the rough brows under rough cut hair. Older: not the younger one who had stood in my yard, but the older. Two, three, maybe five years older than I. Hard to tell with the mileage, though. Scar, faint scar along the cheekbone. I remembered that. Needed a shave. That ironic frown that was more a looking into-the-sun squint. I stopped. Inventory was useless. Or stupid. It was apparently inevitable.
What might have been a smile of agreement tugged his mouth into a scythe and emphasized his cheekbones.
What was it I had said to Deline? ‘I’m exactly where I wanted to be five years ago.’ But time is unimportant. I’m exactly where I want to be. What could an author do? I stood and walked toward him, even before the ‘anthology’ folder had closed beneath my fingers.