A Good Man Is Hard To Find

1

Pulling to a stop in front of Frankie’s Bar and Grill in downtown Hapsburg, a former haunt from her college days, Flannery O’Kelly glanced at the neon wrangler in the yellow shirt and green pants lassoing a red calf over the entrance. She stood for a moment and watched the whole cycle. The cowboy never missed, the calf always crumpled to its knees when the rope tightened around its neck, and the sign buzzed and snapped in the night air like an elaborate mosquito trap. Flannery signed softly to herself. Before this trip, that cowboy had been the only man in Hapsburg, with the exception of Felix Singletary, she could really count on.

Inside, the place smelled of beer and fried food. Clumps of students huddled together at tables, laughing boisterously, drowning out the music in the background. Off to the side, two female servers stood chatting with one another and gave Flannery a quick once-over before resuming their conversation. It was then she spotted John Knutson, her former classmate, the youngest son of a bishop of one of the synods of the Lutheran Church. He had majored in English and had gotten married the afternoon of graduation, against his parents’ wishes, to a sweet hippie chick from Montana. With youthful naivete, he told everyone he wanted to write the great America novel, and that Hapsburg was as good a place as any. Besides, he said, Felix Singletary lived there and would help him.

Standing behind the bar with his apron and cowboy hat, his long hair pulled behind his head in a tight ponytail, a braided rawhide cord around his neck, and his neatly pressed western shirt, John no longer looked like the literary Lutheran kid she remembered wandering around campus in grunge. He now had the lean and hungry look of the neon cowboy in front.

“John!” she called.

“Flannery,” he shouted back, “I thought I recognized you! What are you doing here?”

She slid onto a stool and reached across the counter to shake hands. “Seeing Felix Singletary.”

“Oh, the Werewolf of Hapsburg,” he said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“A werewolf is a person capable of assuming a wolf’s form. Someone with the cunning savagery of a wolf.”

“For Christ’s sake, John, I know what a werewolf is. Why is Singletary one?”

“You’re never seen our distinguished Professor Singletary for what he is, have you? You were always so naive, so idealistic. So fucking ambitious. Well, I can assure you I have. I know him better than anyone. He’s a rat, Flannery. He’ll do anything to destroy a person he views as a rival.” Still seeing doubt in her face, he added, “But that’s why you’ve come, isn’t it? You didn’t think it would happen to you, and now you’re still trying to make sense of it.”

Although this was exactly why Flannery had come, his snide tone put her off.

“Give me a beer, will you?”

“What kind?”

“Something from the tap.”

“A Guinness okay?”

“Sure,” she said.

When he slid the beer across the counter top, Flannery took a sip, and then headed toward an empty table at the far corner of the room.

“Are you going to pay for that?” he called.

“Sure,” she answered, but did not pause. Flannery needed time to think. She would get back to Knutson when she was good and ready.

2

An hour earlier, after driving from the Twin Cities to Hapsburg, Flannery O’Kelly had found her mentor reading alone in the screened-in porch of his house.

“Felix?” she called and opened the door.

He looked up from his book and glanced at her for a few moments before his features assumed an expression of welcome surprise. “Oh, Flannery, so nice to see you.”

She slipped the manila envelope she had brought into his hands.

“Your novel?” he asked, hefting it.

“Yes.”

“Finished?”

“Yes, finally.”

“I’m already looking forward to reading it.”

Flannery breathed a sigh of relief. It was exactly what she wanted to hear. With Singletary’s help, her future was assured. “I hope you’ll like it.”

“I’m sure I will.”

Despite his warm greeting, Felix seemed distracted and preoccupied. He was thinner than she remembered, with lines of strain that cut deep grooves into the sides of his narrow face. With a vague wave of his hand, he indicated a wicker chair for her to sit in, and then settled into his own, where he immediately fell into a brown study, staring at the fading light in front of him. He didn’t move or speak. It was as if he had forgotten she was there.

Since graduating, Flannery had made regular trips to see her mentor, especially in summer, when Felix was free to indulge his twin passions of discussing literature and drinking with former students. There had never been a sexual angle. Singletary had not shown the slightest sexual interest in her—or in any other woman that she knew of—and she had long ago decided he was gay. It made it easier. With her writing, he was the only person she trusted. Often, two or three of them would gather around him, sipping wine or coffee, depending on the time of day, and talk about the burning topic of the moment, usually some new American or English novel that was causing a buzz in literary circles. Now and then, a person might read passages from a work in progress or an entire poem, and then he or she would be rewarded with kind, but incisive criticism. Any time spent with the great man always seemed rewarding.

There were also his famous parties, which Felix Singletary managed like the mistress of a brilliant Paris salon, bantering, flirting, making witty comments, plying drinks, and ensuring that feathers were never ruffled, or if they were, only to underscore some important point he wanted to make. With his friends and associates, he was cultured and urbane, kind and generous, and free with his time and resources—except on those rare occasions when an up-and-coming literary star penetrated his circle of illuminati, usually someone with a new book contract, who did not show the proper respect. Then Singletary seemed to act out of character and would go on the attack. The argument was always over some obscure literary point, something absurd, like the origin of the name Areopagus, from which Milton’s famous work on free speech was based. He would badger the victim with caustic, biting questions until, humiliated beyond endurance, he would flee into the night. On such occasions Flannery wondered if she really knew Singletary. He seemed so nasty and cruel.

When the confrontation was over, Felix would say, “It is a measure of the esteem in which I hold the rest of you that I do not suffer fools gladly,” and then beam at them with his most charming smile. Flannery’s unease seldom lasted for long. Like the others, she desperately wanted to be one of the chosen few—an as-yet undiscovered literary superstar, one of the elect for whom the brass ring was within easy reach—and she quickly fell under his spell again.

Seemingly aware of where he was again, Felix blinked and cleared his throat. Beyond the porch, a chorus of crickets ushered in the darkness and the street lights slowly illumined to full brightness. Noticing that the packet she had given him was resting on his lap, he asked, “Are you satisfied with the result?”

“I think so.”

“What’s it about?”

It seemed an oddly inappropriate question, and Flannery had trouble keeping her impatience out of her voice. “Don’t you recall? I’ve read parts of it in our gatherings, you and I have discussed it several times, and you’ve even edited one of the chapters.”

“Yes, of course, I remember,” he said, “but I want you to summarize the plot for me. It’s what any literary agent will expect. You are planning on having it published, aren’t you?”

“Naturally,” Flannery said, wondering why he was acting so strangely. Felix knew the plot as well as she did. The fact that he had forgotten annoyed her, and she sarcastically invented a plot on the spot, totally unrelated to the real story in her novel.

“It’s about a young Midwestern woman living with her boyfriend in New York City, who discovers that the two women living in the flat above them are snorting heroin. She falls under the spell of one of them, a pedigreed princess, and watches as her own addiction spirals out of control.”

“Yes, I remember now,” he said.

“What?” she asked, thinking he was kidding.

“I remember now.”

She stared at him in disbelief. He really seemed not to know. It was astonishing he couldn’t remember the plot of her novel, which they had discussed at intervals over the years Flannery had spent writing it. He must have noticed the look on her face, for he quickly added, “As I recall, you lived in New York City for a while after graduating.”

“Felix, I took my masters in American literature at NYU. You wrote one of the letters of recommendation that helped me get in. Two years later, after graduation, you had a party for those of us who got our degrees that year. Remember?”

“Of course, I remember.”

“Are you sure?”

“Flannery, I’m just trying to help.”

“How?”

“By showing you what it’s like to deal with literary agents.”

“Aren’t we getting the cart before the horse here?”

He laughed dismissively at her allusion. “You were always one to speak in clichés, weren’t you, honey?”

“Honey?” she asked derisively, but she noticed his eyes grew glassy and he seemed to forget where he was again.

Even though her meeting with Felix wasn’t going according to plan, Flannery was not ready to give up. She had carefully cultivated this man since her days as a freshman, when he deconstructed her writing and ability to analyze literature—pulverized them, actually—and reconstructed them in such a way that she became his top student, the person from her graduating class who was chosen to study at Oxford in England for a term, and the one who graduated with highest honors. Since the time she had begun working on her novel, she and Singletary had a tacit agreement that he would do whatever it took to help her. But now all of this seemed in question. Pretending he knew nothing about it was frustrating beyond belief. What game was he playing? Had she suddenly become one of those fools he had decided to get rid of?

“You are going to help me, aren’t you, Felix?”

“Of course, Flannery. Why would you imagine otherwise?”

“Then you’ll read my novel?”

“I said I would.”

“And suggest changes?”

“Darling, I’ll edit it so perfectly that every agent in the world will want to represent you.”

“Are you sure you have the time?”

“For you, Flannery, always. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to finish this book I’m reading. The editor at Harper’s wants my review on his computer by noon tomorrow. You can let yourself out, I assume.”

“Sure,” she said, gritting her teeth.

Felix flipped on the lamp beside his chair, picked up the book he was reviewing, and began reading. It was as if she no longer existed. For the third time that evening, Flannery was both flabbergasted and angered in equal measures. The wicker chair sang a creaky vibrato as she stood up. With the pool of light from the lamp casting a ragged circle around him, her mentor seemed like a crazed student devouring a text for an important exam. His eyes raced across the lines of text. She wanted to grab the envelope containing her novel and never return, but immediately thought better of it.

In a fit of pique, Flannery stamped across the porch like an elephant wading through the veld, but as far as she could tell, Felix continued to concentrate on his book with such perfect attention he did not look up once, even when she slammed door behind her.

3

Exhaling with a snort of frustration, Flannery rose from the table and grabbed her glass. Brown scum swirled around the sides as she hefted it. She could feel the alcohol loosening her inhibitions, but didn’t care. It was time to find out exactly what John Knutson knew about Singletary.

With his cell phone pressed against his ear, Knutson watched her approach from the bar. He had a scowl on his face and his eyebrow twitched. Setting her glass on the smudged surface of the bar, Flannery scanned his ponytail, rawhide necklace, and fake western costume and wondered how he could have become such a shit in the course of four short years. She overhead snatches of his conversation. “Asking questions…you should get over here…have to hang up.” He seemed not to care whether she heard or not.

After folding his phone, Knutson stared back at her, waiting for her to speak.

Wanting to start in neutral territory, she asked, “How’s your wife? I heard you had a son. How are they doing?”

Knutson flashed the same supercilious smile at her as when she first came into the bar, though it was no less false. He seemed like a cardboard cutout of a man. What had happened to him? In very center of his eyes, Flannery thought she saw the reason. He had lost his dream. The brilliant blue irises of the carefree student of four years ago seemed as if they had been fractured into a thousand pieces.

“Did Ellen leave you?” she asked.

Though it was only a wild guess, Flannery saw that her question had hit home. Knutson’s ironic smile evaporated in an instant, and, in its place, his face assumed what must have been its more habitual expression, pain.

“Did that bastard Singletary tell you?” he demanded, practically spitting out the words. “Is that why you came here—to torment me?”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I just guessed.”

“Guessed?”

“Are you still writing, John? Did you ever complete your novel?”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean? Why wouldn’t I be writing? Because I’m a bartender?”

“I didn’t imply that.”

“Yes, you did,” he sneered. “But, let me tell you something, Miss High and Mighty, you’ll soon change your tune. Just wait. The same thing’s going to happen to you.”

“What are you talking about, John?”

But before he could respond, one of the waitresses appeared, and, without saying a word of excuse, made space for herself by interposing her body between Flannery and the bar. The server practically shoved her out of the way. It was so unexpected and rude, that Flannery stared at the back of the her head with open-mouthed disbelief.

“Another pitcher of beer, John,” the server announced.

“Sure,” he said, grabbing the empty container and taking it to the far end of the bar, where he slid it under one of the beer taps.

Flannery was still studying the back of server’s head, when she turned and glared at her. She was not more than twenty or twenty-one, a blonde hippie with pigtails, no makeup, and an uncomfortably direct manner. Seeing her suspicion face-to-face made it all so obvious. She was in love with John and had assumed Flannery was an old flame come to renew her acquaintance. She desperately wanted to protect him, but from what? Flannery wondered.

“You’re a friend of John’s?” the woman asked.

“From college,” Flannery said, “but I haven’t seen him since the day we graduated.”

“Oh.”

“In fact, this is the first time I’ve been in Frankie’s in the last four years.”

“Then, you’re not friends?”

“Not in an intimate way,” Flannery murmured, unable to keep a wry smile from overspreading her lips. “I only came to ask a couple of questions. Nothing more.”

“You’re just acquaintances from college?”

“That’s right,” Flannery said.

“I’m sorry,” the waitress said, suddenly coloring as she realized how absurdly protective she had been. “My name’s Sky. Short for Skylar.”

“No problem, Sky. I’m Flannery. Are you still in school?”

“No, I graduated this spring.”

“Then why are you still sticking around Hapsburg?”

“Oh, you know.”

“Yeah, I can understand,” Flannery said. “So what happened to John’s ex?”

“She just left. Didn’t leave a note or anything. Stole John’s car, took the boy, and went home to Montana. She called from her parents’ place in Missoula. A year later, she filed for divorce.”

“How did John take it?”

“Not well.”

“What were her grounds for divorce?”

Directing a furtive glance in John’s direction and noticing the pitcher of beer was almost full, Sky whispered, “Alienation of affection.”

“Because of you?”

The young woman shook her head no. “Felix Singletary.”

As Flannery absorbed this information, wondering what exactly she meant, Knutson slid the pitcher of beer across the counter to Skylar, who gave him a soft, sweet smile and took the beer, slopping suds down the sides, to one of the tables of students.

“What did you guys talk about?” John demanded.

“Oh, just girl talk,” Flannery said with an insouciant shrug of her shoulders. “Ask Sky.”

This angered Knutson. “You think you can just waltz in here and raise havoc with people’s lives, get what you want, and then leave without so much as a backward glance. Well, you can’t. You’ve always acted as if the normal rules of life don’t apply to you. Well, they sure as hell apply to the rest of us.”

“If you say so,” she smirked.

“Damn it, Flannery, what do you want?”

“I want to know what’s going on with Felix Singletary.”

“That’s easy. He destroys anyone who gets in his way.”

“What’s the supposed to mean?”

“Wise up, honey. You did something that threatened him.”

“But how? I didn’t do or say anything other than give him the manuscript of my novel.”

“Well, there you go,” he said. “He’s never written a novel himself and hates anyone who actually has, especially if it has the potential to be good.”

“You’re not serious.”

“Totally serious. It’s what he did to me. He destroyed my life.”

Flannery was suddenly sick of this cheap bar with the neon cowboy on the roof and this bitter, frightened man, once a creative and charming student, who was now working as a bartender in his old college town.

“You’re wrong, John. Felix would never do that.”

It was then Flannery felt the whoosh of someone’s body behind her and watched John’s eyes contract to slits. At first she assumed it was Sky, but his reaction was all wrong. He was delighted and disgusted at the same time. Now knowing who it was, Flannery turned to find herself face-to-face with Felix Singletary, who was dressed in a jacket and jeans. In his hand was her manuscript.

“Hi, Flannery.”

“How did you know I was here?” she asked, amazed he had brought her manuscript with him.

“Can we talk?” he said, ignoring her question and indicating an empty table with a wave of his arm. “After you left, I had a chance to read most of your novel. There are a couple of things you should know about it. Then you can go. Okay?”

“Sure,” she said, anxious to know what he thought.

When Flannery sat down, Felix remained standing. “Do you want something to drink?”

“No, I’m fine.”

Watching him angle his slender body between the tables to the bar, Flannery could see that Felix had somehow transformed himself since her visit of two hours ago. He moved with ease. He actually seemed younger. Absurd as it seemed, she had the impression that he had become an animal. Felix ordered a drink and chatted amiably with the other female server, evoking a couple of laughs at whatever he said. Standing off to the side, Sky looked on in stormy silence.

Although Knutson took Singletary’s order, he did so under duress, as if it were his duty to serve anyone who came into the bar. He looked agitated and afraid, as if Felix were somehow a threatening figure to him. This puzzled Flannery, because she was certain it was John who had called Felix on his cell phone. Then she remembered Sky’s comment—that it had been Singletary who had caused the split between John and his wife—and suddenly realized the affair had been between the two men, not between Felix and John’s wife.

“Holy shit,” she murmured. “No wonder John’s conflicted.”

Suddenly, the two men started yelling at one another. All heads turned in their direction as their voices penetrated the far corners of the bar. It was the most absurd lovers’ quarrel Flannery had ever seen—two guys throwing hissy fits like something from The Odd Couple. First one would shout, then the other. Sometimes their voices intertwined like singers staging an operatic duet. At one point, Knutson actually took the rawhide strip from around his neck and pulled it tautly between his two hands as if he were going to garrote Singletary with it.

Finally, Skylar intervened, grabbing Singletary by the arm and pulling him away from the bar. Flannery had the impression it was not the first time she had separated them, for Felix dutifully made his way to where she sat. Sitting his drink on the table—a scotch by smell of it—Flannery decided she wanted one herself.

“I’ll have one, too,” she said.

“I’m not going back to the bar.”

“Why?”

“Why? Have you been asleep for the last few minutes? John’s out of control.”

“He is? He seemed fine to me,” she said, bracing herself for what she knew was coming.

Singletary took rapid sips of his Scotch, appraising her between gulps. “I’ve spent the last hour and a half reading this,” he finally said, pointing to the pages of her manuscript. “I’m sorry to have to tell you that it’s not very good.”

Although she expected something of this nature, it stung anyway. “So why did you encourage me?”

“What do you mean?”

“Why did you help me in school, and, later, after I graduated, encourage me to write?”

Felix paused for a moment, as if considering the impact of what he intended to say. “Do you want me to be honest.”

“Yes. My future’s on the line here.”

“Brutally honest?”

“If need be.”

“I felt great sympathy for you, Flannery. You were such an overachiever, so desperate to be better than everyone else. I hoped with encouragement you might succeed, and you did. You became the best student I ever had. You were my Pygmalion.”

Flannery clearly pictured herself as Eliza Doolittle, the Cockney flower girl, being taught how to speak with an upper class British accent. “Your creation who could parrot your thoughts in class and on tests?”

“That’s right.”

“But not the best author?”

“Sadly, no,” he said. “That was more than I could achieve with you. Creating great fiction takes more than just good writing skills. It requires inspiration, something not everyone can muster, not matter how hard they try. Either you’re born with it or you’re not.”

“You’re saying my writing’s not inspired?”

“It’s not exactly uninspired, Flannery, but so personal and idiosyncratic that no one can really identify with it.”

“Why?”

“It’s your style. It’s like magical realism without the magic.”

His criticism was devastating, and despite her intention to show no emotion, pools of tears formed in her eyes, threatening to spill over her eyelids and run down her face.

It was then Knutson appeared like an avenging angel. Through her tears, Flannery watched as he slipped the strip of braided rawhide around Singletary’s neck and pulled so hard that her mentor fell backward in his chair, gagging, held upright only by the garrote around his neck. Singletary desperately tried to grab the rawhide and pull it away, but could not. He twisted and turned like a lassoed calf. Everyone assumed it was an act, including Flannery, and expected Singletary to rise from his chair even after his head slumped to the side and he stopped breathing.

John released the strip of rawhide cord which rolled across her mentor’s body and fell to the floor like a snake. A nasty red welt circled Singletary’s neck. Knutson smiled. It was the most evil smile Flannery had ever seen in her life.

“My god, he’s dead,” he murmured. “I’ve killed him.”

A murmur rose from the watching crowd of drunken students.

“What shall I do?” Knutson asked.

“Heal him,” someone yelled.

“But I can’t heal a dead man.”

“You must try, John.”

Standing over the body like a shaman performing a sacred rite, Knutson tilted back his head and looked to the heavens. He stood there for several moments as if importuning god for a special favor. Finally, acting as if he had received divine inspiration, he proclaimed in a voice that boomed through the bar, “I am the resurrection and the life. He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?”

“Yea, master,” came the cries of the students.

“Rise!” he commanded.

At first, nothing happened.

“Rise, Felix. I adjure you to rise!” he shouted.

Felix remained slumped over, and it seemed as if John had failed to revive him, but a moment later Felix Singletary opened his eyes, looking around as if he had returned from a deep sleep. “Where am I?”

“You’re back among the living, Felix.”

This was the moment everyone was waiting for, and, on cue, the bar erupted into loud laughter. No one laughed harder than Singletary and Knutson. But to Flannery, it was disgusting. She couldn’t remember witnessing anything more puerile.

“Oh, my god, she really thought you were dead.”

“I know. I know. That look was priceless. Did you see it?”

“How many times have we done this, Felix? Five, six times? And she’s the only one who ever bought it.”

None of this made sense to Flannery, but it didn’t have to. For whatever reason, Singletary’s intention was to humiliate her and she wanted no part of it. Without so much as a backward glance, she picked up her manuscript and left the bar. Outside, like an aura on the sidewalk around her, the ghost of the neon cowboy cast his image as something vile and dirty, but she knew there would be other men, better ones. A chapter in her life had ended, and a new one was about to begin.

“Nothing is exactly as it seems,” she said, “nor is it otherwise,” and, getting in her car, she quickly drove away.