Deadgirl Writer's Cut - Chapter 16

Chapter 16

Puck, Revisited: A Writer's Cut, from Deadgirl

by B.C. Johnson

“Puck kept a bunch of these journals,” Lia said, using the name she hated without a twitch of self-awareness. “Chapters in his life, moving along at the excruciating pace you'd expect from an old academic. Good reads, if you've got eternity. Some of us don't. This journal, though, he always said was 'written by Puck, not Robin Goodman, and edited by God.'”

I smiled at that. I wish I had known that Puck. Not the one stricken mute, living in the grey belt between here and the hereafter. Sprightly but sage, wise but neck-painingly mysterious.

“The CliffNotes version, I guess. The only book he knew others would be able to wade through,” Lia said. “And I think you might be its intended target audience, Miss Day. What do you say?”

There wasn't any other answer. I told her that, in fact.

She nodded and began reading.

That journal saved my life and ended it. I still don't know if I regret listening to that story. Part of me does, the part that can no longer sleep. The portion of me that lives long nights, waiting for the dawn, alone. That division of me would go back in time and hurl that journal into a hungry fire. To accept the death I'd been given. A senseless death, true, but a relatively painless one.

Painless.

Yes, that part of me could use painless. Would do with that just fine, actually.

***

Robin Woodrow Goodman, born in Year-of-Our Lord Eighteen-Eighty-Four, came screaming to life in the back room of a saloon. His mother, Adeline Emelda Goodman, owned the establishment and hadn't spent a day of her pregnancy in rest. When the time came, little Adeline, who had never tasted the air above Five-Feet-One-inch, put down her bar rag, blew out a long sigh, and motioned for Jamison Curdly, the piano player, to come over to the bar.

She whispered a few words in his ear, turned, and walked calmly into the saloon's back room. Jamison Curdly swept off his hat, wiped his forehead, and called Doctor William Darwin over to the sideboard. Now, Doctor William Darwin had no relation to the famed Evolutionary, I assure you. In fact, the only thing he did have was a mortuary and a quick tongue.

When Jamison Curdly whispered in his ear, Dr. William Darwin laughed and slapped his leg.

“Bit of a confession. Never was a real doctor,” said Dr. Darwin.

“Yeah, me neither,” Jamison whispered.

They stared at each other and laughed. They shook hands and went into the back room.

The procedure was messy, but successful. Adeline had done her share of research on the topic, and directed her two pioneer gynecologists through every grisly step. She survived the encounter, against all the laws of God, Man, and Irony. Three powerful figures, with the last reigning over the first two. Then again, a baby and his mother dying in a messy birth didn't even touch spheres with Irony. That was of Reality, an ugly Force of Nature that ought to be done away with.

And so I tried to live like I was born – foolishly, bravely, and with a hint of the absurd.

I was raised in Arizona, the town of Strawberry, the son of a widowed bar owner. My mother, aforementioned Little Adeline, had owned the place ever since my father, her sweet Benny, died of lead-poison – he'd been accidentally shot by a drunk with a penchant for trigger-spinning.