Zebra Skin Shirt Read online

  PRAISE FOR

  THE STRATTFORD COUNTY

  SERIES BY GREGORY HILL

  “An eye for detail, an ear for dialogue, and a knack for story-telling distinguish this unflinching novel of rural America.”

  —Publishers Weekly, about East of Denver

  “East of Denver is a breezily readable summer novel that not only entertains but also surprises. It explores the dynamics of family relationships without ever stooping to sentimentality, and it’s one of this summer’s most pleasant surprises.”

  —Charles Ealy, Austin American-Statesman

  “East of Denver is a slow burn, but by the end it’s burning hot: you’ll leave this book a little charred … This is writing on a par with that of top-flight black-comic novelists like Sam Lipsyte and Jess Walter, and it deserves to be read.”

  —Lev Grossman

  “All the characters are quirky if not downright bizarre and you never really know how things are going to play out. East of Denver is a witty, snarky, and thoroughly enjoyable read.”

  —Leah Sims, Portland Book Review

  “Gregory Hill … displays a keen, at times riveting, understanding of the absurdities and freedoms of small-town isolation and the dying way of life that was once the American standard.”

  —Cherie Ann Parker, Shelf Awareness

  “East of Denver is an agreeable, offbeat debut novel … A story about a father and son who bond against the odds, with an ending as quirkily satisfying as the rest of the book.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “Impressively well written from beginning to end, The Lonesome Trials of Johnny Riles is a terrifically entertaining read and showcases extraordinary and imaginative storytelling abilities.”

  —Midwest Book Review

  “Like Hill’s superb debut, East of Denver, The Lonesome Trials of Johnny Riles surely is a damn fine, if distinctly peculiar, country noir.”

  —Booklist

  “The Lonesome Trials of Johnny Riles is a wild, weird, fun ride.”

  —Yuma Pioneer

  “The Lonesome Trials of Johnny Riles renders Eastern Colorado/High Plains life as it really has always been: down-to-earth, matter-of-fact, and always on the brink of psychedelia. This is an unapologetic triumph of contemporary Rural American Realism.”

  —Zach Boddicker, Songwriter 4H Royalty

  “Before Narwhal Slotterfield, the mortals of “Strattford” myth had to reckon with a culturally-erosive, all-encroaching Future. In Zebra Skin Shirt, Narwhal suffers every atomized moment of the “Right-Fucking-Now.” It’s a cosmic ordeal, Greg Hill’s third excellent novel in a row, and a trip well worth taking.”

  —Mike Molnar, Chicken Pickin’ King of Country/Western Guitar

  “Part mystery, part Steven Wright stand-up routine, part Einsteinian thought experiment, what do you call Zebra Skin Shirt? Sly-Fi? Off-off-off-beat? Magical Surrealism? Whatever it is, three cheers for the unforgettable former amateur basketball referee, Narwhal W. Slotterfield, and his creator, the wildly imaginative Gregory Hill.”

  —Mike Keefe, Political Cartoonist

  ZEBRA

  SKIN

  SHIRT

  ZEBRA

  SKIN

  SHIRT

  A STRATTFORD COUNTY YARN

  VOLUME III

  GREGORY HILL

  Other yarns in the Strattford County series

  East of Denver

  The Lonesome Trials of Johnny Riles

  Zebra Skin Shirt. Copyright © 2018 by Gregory Hill. All rights reserved. Printed in Canada. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. Bower House books may be purchased with bulk discounts for educational, business, or sales promotional use. For information, contact Bower House P.O. Box 7459 Denver, CO 80207 or visit BowerHouseBooks.com.

  Cover Illustration/Print by Genghis Kern Letterpress & Design

  Design by Margaret McCullough

  Map by Gregory Hill

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2018937269

  ISBN: 978-1-942280-51-4

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Dedicated to my heroes:

  Archimedes, Spinoza, Arthur Koestler,

  and Alex English

  CONTENTS

  Part One

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  Part Two

  30

  31

  32

  33

  34

  35

  36

  37

  38

  39

  40

  41

  42

  43

  44

  45

  46

  47

  48

  49

  50

  51

  52

  Part Three

  53

  54

  55

  56

  57

  58

  59

  60

  61

  62

  63

  64

  65

  66

  67

  68

  69

  70

  71

  72

  73

  74

  75

  76

  77

  Part Four

  78

  79

  80

  81

  82

  83

  84

  85

  86

  87

  88

  89

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the author

  Q: What did the snail say when it rode upon the turtle’s back?

  A: Wheeee!

  Q: What did the escargot say when it rode upon the turtle’s back?

  A: Oui!

  Q: What did the snail and the escargot simultaneously pronounce as they rode upon the back of a turtle poised upon an infinitely regressive stack of turtles?

  A: We.

  PART

  ONE

  Et pourtant il fallut descendre!

  —Michel Siffre,

  Expériences hors du temps

  1

  Have you ever read The Road? Not On the Road, just The Road. Hell, I never even made it thru On the Road. I do own a copy, given to me by an ex-girlfriend, of whom I will not speak again except to say that the circumstances of the dissolution of our relationship were quite painful, for me at least.

  In the interim between being told by this ex-girlfriend that all that remained of our love candle, which had been frighteningly short to begin with—she illustrated this by spreading her index fingers to approximate the height of a birthday candle—was a small pile of ashes, and my eventual realization that candles don’t actually become ashes—rather, they disappear, or, rather, chemical combustion transforms them into light and heat and smoke—I tried to read On the Road.

  Earlier, in the uncomplicated days of our relationship, on my approximate birthday, she had gifted me a paperback copy of On the Road, saying, “This is the reason I moved to Denver.”

  Up to that point,
I had assumed she’d moved because of me and my letters and phone calls and the wonderful week we’d spent together at Yellowstone Park. I had assumed wrong, and this left me jealous. How could I, a man of blood and flesh, compete against a hallowed work of literature? This marked the only time I’ve ever been jealous of a book. I expressed this jealousy by choosing to not read On the Road, not at first.

  But then the non-re-ignitable interim happened and I resolved to read the book in hopes that it would uncover some facet of our relationship which I could breathe upon gently, as one does to the last coals of a campfire upon awaking cold and confused next to one’s tent, sober enough to be cold and confused, drunk enough to think one can elicit a flame from a pile of powdery grey ash.

  I failed to rekindle the relationship. And so, after reading just forty pages, I closed On the Road and slid the book onto the shelf, sandwiched between a Proust novel and another novel whose blurb described it as “Proustian,” neither of which I have ever read.

  On the Road remained shelfish for a decade and a half, following me from one apartment to another, until another, later girlfriend said to me after breakfasting one Sunday morning, “I had that same edition. Penguin, 1991. Your bookmark is set toward the beginning of the book. This could mean one of two things.”

  I said, “It means the former.”

  She said, “I agree. Kerouac is terrible.”

  I will talk more about this girlfriend, and with great enthusiasm.

  On the other hand, and back to our initial subject, I read The Road in one day. Imagine if Cormac McCarthy had written a post-apocalyptic novel of wisdom and suspense and gore. If that image pleases you, then I recommend you read The Road, because that is precisely what it is.

  I loved every word of The Road except the ones in which the novel paused to render flash-backian stories from the protagonist’s pre-apocalyptic, happy-family days. I dislike it when authors employ flashbacks. They distract, don’t you think?

  Alas, this anti-flashback bias becomes problematic when you live in a world in which flashbacks have become your only relief from an existence so silent and still, where your only motivation is unfocused hope, where your past is ever receding and your future always lonely.

  That, now, is my life.

  I am the solitary grain of sand that has accidentally slipped thru the waist of the hourglass, falling unaccompanied toward the smooth bottom below me. Above, the rest of the silicate mob stubbornly refuses to follow. And here I am in my descent, waiting to collide with the glass floor, pleading with the rest of the sand to awaken and bury me.

  The preceding paragraph consists of the kind of withered-on-the-pine prose that would force me to close a book after forty pages. Unsmiling, narcissistic, a type of self-mythologizing that assumes that the rest of the world wishes to hear the legend of me, Narwhal Slotterfield.

  Sorry. Listen, I’m beat. Let’s get this thing over with.

  *

  Narwhal is my name as well as, coincidentally, my spirit animal. My spirit animal is a sea bovine with a tooth sticking out of its upper lip. The first sailors who saw me mistook me for an elephant seal which had eaten a unicorn.

  I am approximately thirty-three years old, with a receding hairline. My skin is a touch on the swarthy side. I’m dark enough that I can get a great tan, but light enough that I can still sunburn. I self-identify as a white male, although it’s entirely possible my DNA contains more than a smattering of material from African, African American, American Indian, Arab, India Indian, Italian, Jewish, Latino, or any of the other swarthy races. I’m adopted, so it’s hard to say what I am.

  Were it not for my receding hairline, I might be handsome. My features are somewhere between chiseled and undefined. Depending on the perspective, my nose is long and flat and broad, or pointy and small and round. It’s a Roman nose, via Pinocchio, which clearly points to at least one Italian in the family tree.

  I’m roughly six feet eight inches tall. The weather up here is fine, I can assure you, although I would appreciate it if you could please make your doorways taller, your beds longer, your automobiles more commodious.

  A basketball official by profession, I’ve worked all levels: high school, elementary, toddler, rec club, celebrity fundraiser, the occasional college game. A referee. In the common parlance, a ref. Vulgarly known as a zebra. Extreme vulgarity: fucking cocksucker.

  Jog the court, whistle, halt proceedings, somebody slid a pivot foot, spin arms in the paddleboat dance. I called games, I won games, I lost games.

  And me, six foot eight. By the time I was a sophomore in high school, I could throw it down easy. I should have been a player, not a zebra. But I wasn’t a team guy. Never went out for a basketball squad, not in elementary, junior high, or high school. I’m an adjudicator, not a player.

  My career has consisted of seventh grade boys glaring at me for accusing them of double dribbles; girls in ponytails telling me to fuck my own face; and parents, so many parents, simply loathing me. One must ignore the sneers and the comments, the hip-checks.

  Once, in a high school playoff game, I granted a three-pointer even though a toe was clearly on the line. At halftime, as I walked toward the custodial closet that served as the officials’ dressing room, the disadvantaged coach grabbed my shirt collar and threatened to slice off my manhood with a butcher knife. The choice of knife would seem suspect; I think you’d want something more nimble, like a switchblade. There’s no accounting for what a person will say when they feel threatened. As for me, I said nothing. Let the game continue. The underdog pulled off a miracle.

  I never blew my whistle for a technical, ever. I hoped this leniency would endear me to them, those monsters. It didn’t, ever. Instead, my leniency invited the whole glittering rainbow of human cruelty. Entire gymnasia, home crowd and visitor, would chant my name in derision. Led, of course, by the cheerleaders, who made up a song just for me. “He’s blind, he’s dumb, he don’t know the rules. Slotterfield! Slotterfield! He sucks it hard!”

  In its limited poetic capacity, the cheer united the opposing forces of Us and Them against Me. Hatred binds. Which explains why I was never investigated, reprimanded, or otherwise cautioned by any governing body in any of the leagues that wrote my checks. Basketball is entertainment and my games were entertaining. The people in charge knew what I was up to and, by refusing to discipline me, endorsed it.

  My specialty was Avoiding Blow-outs. My other specialty was Giving Hope to the Underdog. My favorite specialty was Creating Chaos. If things are getting dull, call a foul on the short kid. It doesn’t matter if he’s not within a dozen feet of another human. He’s short, therefore someone will be indignant, thereby dramatically upping the emotional quality of the contest. Athletics thrive on emotion.

  When I worked a game, everyone in the gym had a chance to win and everyone had a chance to hate. It’s difficult, maintaining that balance, keeping an eye out for the little guy while simultaneously taking advantage of him.

  Being as tall as I am, I’m never the little guy.

  After a typical game, I would exit the gym without changing out of my shopping-mall-shoe-salesmen outfit, without speaking to a single person, and then drive to my apartment and drink filth and listen to the neighbors choking their children. There, reclining on my recliner, staring at my vertically unheld cathode-ray television, I would enjoy a very specific fantasy.

  I’m a passenger on a lifeboat. It’s been several days since we watched the mast and the cargo and the captain go under. This is after the whirlpool, but before the sharks. Me and the parents and the players and the coaches and the cheerleaders and my child-choking neighbors, all floating together in a longboat, staring at one another as if we were all cartoon pork chops. A tropical sun bears down from a cloudless sky. The rations are gone. The only option is to draw lots. Last lots. I win. I eat the pork chops.

  At this juncture, if you were my shrink and if I were telling you this, I suspect you would jot something in your notepad. I suspect
you’d write, “This man is a creep.”

  I can’t argue with you, Doctor. I am not inherently likeable. I acknowledge this freely. I am honest, though. For instance—and here’s a thing few people, swarthy or otherwise, would ever admit—I once called a man by a very bad name.

  I was six years old, on the city bus, sitting between my latest set of adoptive parents. It was the summer between kindergarten and first grade. I’d gone three days without a tantrum so Mom and Dad Slotterfield rewarded me with a trip downtown for ice cream.

  We lived in an outskirt of Denver otherwise known as Lakewood, and it was quite the treat to ride the bus toward the skyscrapers, stopping every three blocks to exchange the normal-looking people of our outskirt for the non-normal people of the city. This was the late 70’s. Punk rock had reached Denver. Denim jackets and wild haircuts and the whole bit. Mom and Dad Slotterfield, who had acquired me from the adoption agency only weeks before, complained about the punks, for their posture, mostly. I liked the punks well enough, but more intriguing to me were the black folk. I’d seen very few of their kind, and mostly on TV, the miniseries Roots being my primary exposure to people of pigmentation. I loved Roots. It taught me to hate slavery.

  I was wearing cut-offs. My T-shirt was silkscreened with a cartoon of an eyeball covered with bird poop. Above the picture, in sparkly letters: It pays to look out before you look up.

  The bus stopped. A citizen of Lakewood disembarked and a black man, a citizen of the used-car-lot-dominated area between Lakewood and Denver, embarked and sat in the seat behind us. He was a normal looking person, more normal than the punk rockers, that’s for certain.

  Six blocks later, the black man pulled the cord, but the bus didn’t stop. He shouted to the driver, “Stop, please!” Then, in a voice that I distinctly recall as being good-humored, he added, “Why don’t anybody ever listen to me?”

  I turned around and said to him, “Because you’re a nigger.”

  I thought we were sharing a joke. He was a descendant of slaves. I was somewhat swarthy. I loved him and I wanted to impress him. So I called him a nigger. I know I’m stretching plausibility, but that is precisely how it happened. There’s a reason why I rarely tell this story. I’m only telling it now because I want you to understand that I’m honest.