The Body Of Jonah Boyd - By David Leavitt Page 0,66

the actual present moment had ceased to exist, much as it had ceased to exist for her husband that afternoon in the park, when he was talking about the unwritten final chapters of his novel. Meanwhile, under the weight of the notebooks, my erection was subsiding. Eros had fled the room, only to be replaced by forces less salubrious: greed, and dread, and vengefulness; possibilities of glory and of power, the power to control someone else’ life, to make someone suffer, or flush with relief at your whim; and the power of knowing that the success or failure of a plan hinges upon your role, that you can sabotage it if you choose; and the power that naturally accrues to whoever holds a jewel or ring or amulet that has been endowed with magical properties. For as you may have guessed, Denny, by now I was starting to view the notebooks themselves not merely as bargaining chips in some hideous game between husband and wife, but as objects in themselves capable of altering the course of human lives, for better or worse. Remember that Boyd, since his arrival, had been speaking of them in such hushed and reverent tones—implying, even by his habit of always losing them or leaving them behind, that they possessed some mystic potency by virtue of which he could count on them always flying back to him of their own volition, like magic carpets. He had said, “I trust to the protection of the muse.” If the spirit of the muse inhered, as this remark implied, within the very leather and paper from which the notebooks were made, then it seemed logical that I—that any person who possessed them—would also come under the muse’ benevolent influence.

My silence amounted to accord. Anne departed, creeping on tiptoe through the bathroom to her snoring husband’ side, the bag that she carried now bereft of its contents, stretched and empty looking, like a condom thrown aside after an act of love. And I, in the meantime, was left with those four notebooks piled atop my groin. As soon as she was gone, I got out of bed and buried them in the chest where I kept the stuffed animals of my childhood. Amid Fatbottom the sheep and Gertrude the bear and the pajama bag in the shape of a turtle that Daphne had made me the Christmas when she had been briefly captivated by sewing, I thrust the notebooks containing Jonah Boyd’ novel. They remained there all through the next day’ search, and the next week, and the week after that, at which point I moved them to the place where they have remained, on and off, for the last thirty years. Have you guessed, Denny, where that is? Would you like me to show you? Come. Follow me.

Ben stopped talking. Standing from the bed, he went into his parents’ bedroom, then out the door onto the back porch. As instructed, I followed. Down into the garden he led me, past the swimming pool and the flagstone patio where once the koi had swum, and then we made our way down the grassy slope into the barbecue pit. I don’t think that until that afternoon I’d ever bothered to study the barbecue pit closely, not even during my fantasies of playing Dame Carcas. It was made of red brick; a chimney rose from its principal aperture, a sort of charred craw with a spit. Clearly one of the owners who had succeeded the Wrights had attempted at least once (probably a few times) to put the pit to the use for which it was intended, for as we neared it, I caught an unpleasant stench of wet ash. To the left and right of the aperture were two other openings, both much smaller, their blackened iron doors affixed to the brick by means of rather medieval looking hinges. “These must have been meant for storing charcoal or wood,” Ben said, opening the one on the left. “When I was a kid I used to hide things here that I didn’t want my mother to find, that copy of Hustler and my hippie book and . . . other things. Because she had an aversion to the pit, and refused to come down here. She was always bugging my father to fill it in, which he never did, probably just to spite her . . .” Soot blackened Ben’ fingers. He reached inside the aperture, felt about for a moment, and