A-Sides Page 17

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  John Johnston laced his hands behind his head in a mythically prosaic pose.

  “Back when he was in his early twenties -twenty years ago- Bill told me a story. It’s not a pleasant story and is more so for being true. A real horror tale, doubtless, but they were always his first love even though he had shunted them aside in his published works. We were both nine sheets to the wind that night, so I gave the story little thought until later. He was a good yarner, sort of like an Italian housewife or a Jewish lawyer: if you tied his hands, he couldn’t talk.

  “His story that night was halting, badly told, and overflowing with real emotion. That’s what convinced me that it was true. This recent thing, his death, only reinforces that belief.

  “He told me that he was lying in his bed one night at two or three in the morning, not able to sleep. He had done something that day. ‘An awful thing’. Those were his exact words. To this day I don’t know what it was. He never told me.

  “He said that his room suddenly became very hot, like someone had lit a fire under him or thrown the switch on a blast furnace.

  “ ‘What was it like,’ I asked him.

  “ ‘It was like I had a fever,’ he told me. ‘The room was so hot. I started sweating, a smelly, sticky sweat like oil that has gone rancid. I couldn’t think straight, even though my brain felt like a squirrel on speed. The only thing that was going through my head were these crazy jumbles of words and phrases. I could see them in my mind’s eye through a red fog like steam from boiling blood. That’s what I was thinking: Boiling blood and steam.’

  “’I thought I was going crazy, bonzo, right off the pike. The heat was making me delirious and that’s when I smelled the hair burning. It was everywhere, that smell like burning hair, making me sick. I thought my fright would kill me.’

  “’I put my hands on my head to make sure it wasn’t my hair burning. The heat kept coming at me in red waves that got hotter and hotter. By the time I got out of bed and checked for a smoldering fire or flying sparks, the smell of burning hair was so thick I could feel it in my guts. It was choking me, making me sick. I wanted to retch, but all I could do was gag and choke. I couldn’t find out where the heat or the smell was coming from. I was so scared,’ -and believe me, he was. I was drunk when he told me, and a lot of years have passed, but I can still see his huge eyes and hear his papery voice. Then he started again.

  “’I thought I was burning and there was nothing I could do to stop it. I was afraid to even look out the window because I thought I might see hell and the devil right there in my front yard.’

  “’I finally got my senses back long enough to turn the lights on. As soon as the light pushed away the darkness, the smell went away. It just vanished, like it had lost this time and slithered through the wall to wait for another chance. The heat went with the smell and I started to shiver. I wanted to scream, but I thought that might let whatever was outside my window know that I was close to being beaten. If it knew that, it would take me. I had to fight it at any cost. After all that, I slept with the light on for the next month.’

  “ ‘The smell has never bothered me again. The smell of burning hair. But sometimes the heat comes back….’”