Will McGrath - Farewell Transmission: Notes from Hidden Spaces

2580 Craig Rd.

Ann Arbor, MI 48103

www.dzancbooks.org

F AREWELL T RANSMISSION . Copyright 2022, text by Will McGrath. All rights reserved, except for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher: Dzanc Books, 2580 Craig Rd., Ann Arbor, MI 48103.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Available Upon Request

First Edition: August 2022

ISBN: 978-1-950539-72-7

Cover design and illustrations by J. Zachary Keenan

Interior design by Michelle Dotter

Some names have been changed, to protect the innocent and the guilty.

Printed in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

SUCH AS:

The story is not all mine, nor told by me alone.

Indeed I am not sure whose story it is; you can judge better.

Ursula K. Le Guin

There is another world, but it is in this one.

Paul luard

BIRD & SPADE

T HEN WE CAME DOWN OFF THE MOUNTAIN, the air electric in our lungs. Sam wanted to get home before darkness fell, was afraid of the devil dogs, Eve too, and who could blame them. Wed seen those dogs before in the full darktheir eyes glowing like little dimesas they slunk between the thatch-roofed rondavels of the village and slipped down toward the river. This was when we lived in Lesotho, that tiny verdant gem set into the bezel of southern Africas highlands. Sam was five then, Eve three, and the devil dogs had colonized perhaps an outsized stretch of their mental landscape. But that climb in the late afternoon never failed to thrill: we made the ascent daily and sat in the wind with all of Mokhotlong camptown spread below us. From an outcropping we watched hawks glide in figure eights, infinite loops, surfing invisible currents while they hunted. When the sun sat atop the rim of mountains, the brilliant falling light woke up the metal roofs of the town below, a silver mosaic set into the valley floor.

We found the bird near the doorstep to our room. It had flown into a window, tricked by that same light, and lay on its back terminally stunned. Oh, said Eve, when she saw the poor ruined creature. Oh, said Sam, as he watched the frantic pumping of its breath. I brought them inside and found a cartoon. They asked if I was going to help the bird and I said yes.

I drew a curtain across the window and closed the door. When I stepped outside, I saw the bird had managed to right itself and was gravely attempting to scrape off toward the road. It could not fly. I knew once night fell the devil dogs would take great brainless pleasure in eating it alive, so I went looking for Ntate Thumisangs spade.

The bird had made little progress by the time I returned, but two of its companions had come to protect it. They hopped about, worrying, lit off as I neared, then roosted on a downspout out of reach. They chirped furiously at me, darting toward and then away, venturing as close as they dared. I stood over the broken creature and it stilled in my shadow. For a moment I watched its delicate chest heavingit was a sparrow, perhaps, or a wren, decorated around the throat with ruffed white. I thought of Sam and Eve inside the room.

Dusk was oozing down the mountainside, congealing in clefts and crevices, and the air had gone cold. I could hear the wilderness listening, as William Stafford once wrote, and so I floated the flat face of the spade over the wounded animal, inhaled and exhaled and brought the spade down as hard as I could then did it again before I could decide whether a second blow was necessary. Electricity sang in my forearms, traveled aching to my elbows, and dispersed. Two flat metal pongs echoed off the mountains. The bird was dead instantly, the lights cut. I scooped it onto the spade and headed toward the road, where the devil dogs would have it after all. Its two companions swooped and scouted for the remainder of the evening, singing out, searching, and then I didnt see them again.

I wont pretend to know what happens when we die. That bird became electricity and sound, passed through me on its way elsewhere. But I do know theyll ask before Im readyperhaps Ill be sweeping under the dinner table, cleaning bits of chicken the baby shredded, and Eve will say, Daddy, what happens after were dead?

Maybe we have souls that become electricity, or maybe the lights go out forever, or maybe our molecules sink into the earth and rearrange, find a new form, a different kind of eternal return. Maybe I wont say any of that, I dont know.

And maybe the question of after isnt the question at all.

After I returned from the road and after I returned the spade to Ntate Thumisangs shed, I slipped back into our room. Inside, a cartoon mouse was bashing a cat over the head with a frying pan, again and again, and Sam and Eve were dying, they were utterly beside themselves. Sam had his arm around Eves shoulders. I stood in the doorway and watched.

THE KINGS OF SIMCOE COUNTY

I M Two HOURS NORTH OF T ORONTO in a borrowed bug-eyed Mercedes, rolling hard on Tim Hortons and intent on dodging the fuzz. Ive come here with an ill-bred band of hooligans, upstarts, blowhards, and minor loutsone of whom Im bound to by the treaties of holy matrimony, the others by various blood oaths and pacts of mutual degeneracy. We have come to the Great White North in search of the Deep Down South. We have come to see the Kings. Up here the roads are sunbaked gray, voluptuous and empty in a way that obligates fast driving. We blur through rural intersections and skim alongside golden shag. The Ontario farmland unfurls warmly around us. We pass the steady moral ranch houses of Simcoe County, their front lawns decorated with Muskoka chairs and wooden moose statuary. Here in the side yard a gardener has populated her strawberry patch with tiny stone and crystal fairy figurines, deep in the vegetationa secret joke, a secret hope.

Norm! the Karate Elvises are screaming. Do your thing, Norm!

Norm is perspiring and his mascara has started to run. The crowd in the bar has settled into a low anticipatory thrum as Norm centers himself between songs, but when they catch the opening strains of the gospel classic Stand by Me, the room emits a shriekmen, women, most of them grandparentseveryone shrieks instinctively, it is bat sound. The crowd is lathered, but Norm is calm, Norm is in total control. In a certain slant of light he looks downright beatific.

Then his kid comes out on stage. Norms kid cant be more than six.

Wait for it, the Karate Elvises are telling me, shaking me by the arm.

I wait for it.

A question:

Why does one go to an Elvis Presley impersonator festival in the county of Simcoe, in the province of Ontario, in the country of Canada, on the planet of Earth?

That question benefits from a slight rephrasing: In a rustic town in Ontario there exists the worlds largest Elvis fest, a multiday celebration involving parades of classic cars, carnival rides, Elvis flicks under the stars, hundreds of live performances, and a battle royale to determine the greatest Elvis impersonator on the planet. The rephrased question is: What kind of philistine doesnt go?