The Atrocity Artist

1.

A man should run toward death not away from it. This is how Skad sees it. But after losing a son, it was only natural he would need a moment to rest and reflect. To shade his eyes from the looming darkness, while he recovers the strength to move forward again.

He deems Lake Sauvage the best place to do this. The dull, quiet land of his youth has none of the distractions of the city. People would not be ringing at his bell and dropping by unannounced. No one would be phoning him to ask him for an interview, or to create a piece for charity, or to teach a seminar. Not even his agent has his number at the old cottage.

Skad chooses to ignore the spell of the place even though he experienced it on earlier visits. On the shores of that lake, the past lingers like mist. Nostalgia is a miasma rising off the water, infecting all who come near. The decaying sickness of bygone days withers and stunts the residents.

Certainly, it pollutes the blood and clouds the mind of the woman behind the cash.

Perhaps this is why she recognizes Skad right off.

Her name is Meryl or Melinda. Something that starts with an M. She'd been working at Brickle's gas station for almost as long as Skad and Ed first started making the long trip from the house into town. They were scabbed kneed brats back then. She'd been there, selling them penny candy and baseball cards, but on those early visits she existed as a background figure, little different than the pumps outside. Clearer is the memory of those summers when they'd been gangly adolescents and she'd been a teenager with her blonde hair in a ponytail. The image of her stocking the shelves in cutoff shorts over a marine blue one-piece bathing suit is vivid. Her tanned legs stretching. Her bare shoulders with a hint of sunburn peel constricting and revealing a bulge of muscle with each can she lifted. Her turning to tell them she'd be right with them. Her right areola rising like a small golden-brown sun, peeking out of her top.

Skad can't look at the waddle under her chin or the liver-spotted hands bagging his groceries, so he eyes the corpulent cleavage her tank top displayed. It's only a slightly better view. Constellations of freckles spread across the expanse as dense as the milky way and stretch marks gives the skin a withered looked.

She says, "Just can't keep you Skadding boys away."

He nods to indicate he's heard. The daft broad must think he and Ed still ran in here every other day buying licorice whips and bubble gum as an excuse to ogle her. There hadn't been a Skadding living year-round on Lake Sauvage for thirty years. Normally, even Skad only visited for a couple of weeks each summer. Mostly to ensure the caretaker wasn't pocketing his checks and letting the old place rot.

"You in for the season?" she asks.

Skad came a month earlier this year. How long he'll actually stay is a mystery even to him. Instead of answering, he points to the shelves behind her, "And a pack of Marlboros."

She grabs the cigarettes, not needing to turn and look. She's practiced the motion her entire life.

"I hate seeing what's happening out by your place. It's a disgrace. An eyesore, I say. And everyone on the lake has to look at that... thing. All because some rich foreigner wants to show off." She shakes her head as though grieving the loss of a distant but not unknown relative.

"Well, I hope the town makes him feel real welcome," he says. With the way her mouth twitches into a smile, it's not hard to imagine the future malice she's contemplating. Whether she'd had the idea before Skad came in or not, now when the newcomer came in to fill up on gas or buy a loaf of bread, he'd experience true Sauvage hospitality.

He takes his bags back to his car. One of those fellows they bring up to pick apples is getting out of Mercedes. He shouldn't even be here this time of year and the car was obviously stolen. On the wall, a phonebooth is perched below the ess in the faded paint of the "Brickle's" sign. Skad could call the police, but why should he bother. If they were too lazy to be out checking for these problems, he's not going to break a sweat to do their job for them.