A pensive, brooding darkness had fallen upon the mountains of Southern Utah. A chill hung in the air as the dark clouds released their rain. A wolf howled in the distance.
        Without calling attention to myself, I leaned back in the black leather chair and forced up the foot rest, my mood somber and gray. It had already been a long evening; so I lit my pipe and sipped my beer and decided that I was going to make myself comfortable for the three or four dreary hours that remained.
        The four of us were sitting in Dr. Lorenzo's living room, the high oaken walls, the red tapestry and the fretted gothic ceiling incongruous with the pastoral mountain setting. The lights were dimmed, the shelves jammed with old worn hard-cover books, and the fire was burning very low in the grand old stone fire place. In the depressing silence between comments, I could hear the rain gently, monotonously beating down on the roof and upon the leaves of the plants that grew just outside the large open window. Chilled, I dreamt of Pynchon's vision of a collapsing universe, thought of Eco's void, and wished I were somewhere else.
         It was late October. The Senior Vice President of the college, Dr. Keith Lorenzo, had invited a select few members of the English department to join him and his aging, overweight and moribund wife Clarabelle at his cabin in the mountains of Southern Utah. Set ten miles off the nearest paved road, the cabin was a large two-story log house that had been built one hundred and thirty years ago on a small rise overlooking the meadow where, at the turn of the century, some group called the Turner family had been ruthlessly gunned down and then eaten by the Northanger party. Once of tributary of blood, the stream that meandered through the meadow one hundred yards from the house was said to be full of fish.
        Though half opened eyes, I looked about the darkening room. Dr. Lorenzo sat in a large high-backed leather chair just to the left of the fading fire. He reminded me of a king sitting on his throne. An important but dreadfully dull man, he had dominated conversation for the last four hours, confident that his guests shared his own dull fascination with topics whose obscurity would put anyone to sleep. Currently, he was talking about World War II bombers; he'd even brought out books, tables, and charts that he had purchased over the years. To stay alert, I dreamed of dancing with strippers at my favorite night club in Vegas, imaged their warmth as they rubbed up against me, imagined taking one of them home with me to enjoy her warmth beneath the sheets.
        Elmer Bumstead, former Episcopal priest and now the head of the English department, sat on the long black leather couch that stretched to the right of the fireplace. I noticed that the shelves behind Bumstead were lined with novels by Austen, Scott, Dickens, Thackeray, and Eliot, possibly left over from his wife's graduate school days at Rutgers. I wondered if Bumstead's positioning in front of the shelves had been calculated. I concluded that it was. Bumstead was a ruthless man, the sort who succeeds admirably in the back stabbing environs of academia. He'd been my superior for a few years now.

        Fifteen years ago, in fact, Bumstead and I had been good friends. We started teaching at the college at about the same time and I had co-authored with him three literature text books, two of which enjoyed a significant national distribution. However, it was Bumstead, not I, who received a pat on the back from the administration, and after he was named Outstanding Faculty of the Year his career literally took off. Five years ago, Bumstead had been appointed head of the English department. From that point on, everything Bumstead put his hand to seemed to turn to gold. Everything he wrote found a publisher; he found himself invited to parties either in Las Vegas or LA every weekend; he was even acknowledged as an outstanding citizen of the community. On the other hand, everything I touched turn to shit, and I wondered at times if I were under a curse. My writing contracts were canceled by the very publishers who vowed to stay with Bumstead; a literary magazine that I had started with a couple of colleagues, while gaining a national circulation and reputation, won me no friends at the college, opened no door in the arts community; around my colleagues, I could feel a gigantic invisible wall separating me from them. In public places, colleagues even tended to ignore me. Consequently, I went spiraling crazily out of the academic and literary arts circles and, to make a long story short, found friendship and acceptance in the darkest place of Vegas. A single man, I began dating some of the nude dancers in town and fell madly in love with a gorgeous Oriental, who went by the name of Annie. Still enraged by my exclusion from academic and artistic circles, I began hanging out with a rather dark crowd—and, eventually, I began to think like they did.

        And so now, understandably, I was thinking dark, dark thoughts about Dr. Bumstead, whose very existence marred my own personal happiness and success. Sooner or later, something would have to be done. As Browning's Porphyry's lover says, "I had a thing to do."
        A small thin balding man whose face became a concert of nervous twitches when he was under fire, Bumstead was sprawled, almost seductively, at an angle on the couch, drinking a bottle of Irish Ale and listening to Dr. Lorenzo drone on and on about his peculiar fascination with the landing gear of World War II American fighter-bombers.
        "That's quite fascinating, Keith," commented Bumstead, somewhat flirtatiously. He was the only one allowed to use Dr. Lorenzo's first name. "Quite, quite fascinating indeed. I was at one time considering a career in planes--before, that is, I moved on. I knew something about landing gear myself." The truth, of course, is that Bumstead knew as much about airplanes as I did: zero. I had known Bumstead for a long time. Too long.
        "Oh ho!", boomed Lorenzo, taking an enormous gulp of his Dr. Pepper and then pausing to burp. Dr. Lorenzo was a large man with dark wrinkled features and a full head of graying hair. He wore thick dark rimmed glasses and, on this occasion, a purple jogging suit that I think he had bought from Sears. "So we have a pilot among us, do we?" he chimed. The vice president was simply thankful that he had in his presence someone obsequious enough to claim a similar fascination about landing gear.
        "Yes," replied Bumstead, invisibly groveling, "I would have been one. Once. But I responded to a different calling. Emerson, Whitman, Melville, and Thoreau." With this, Bumstead looked around the room at me, seated directly across from him, and then over at the fourth member, Dr. Jay Stowright, who sat in a large pink-cushioned chair on the far side of the room facing the fire. Jay and I had attended graduate school together in Minnesota and later had nurtured an interest in the occult together. Once, several years ago, we had even participated in a series of pagan sacrifices together.
        Typical of his Northern Michigan upbringing, Stowright had been silent as a church mouse all night. An ominous sort to those who did not know him, he was, in most cases, a man of very few words. Save for an occasional slurping of his iced tea, which he drank addictively, Stowright had contributed little else but his large and somewhat unsettling presence to our company that evening. Currently, Jaybird (as I called him) was fingering a pentagram, which he wore religiously around his neck, claiming it was a gift from a deceased girlfriend. He despised Bumstead as much as I did.
        "And what do you think, uh, Dr. Lewis?" Lorenzo asked in my direction, stifling a yawn. "Do you have any particular thoughts that you'd like to share with us concerning landing gear?" A lizard caught napping, I snapped my eyes open.
        "Oh, yes, Lewis, do share something insightful with us," said Bumstead, sitting upright, raising his eyebrows, and glaring distrustfully at me.
        I was used to his glares, but I couldn't help but wonder what this particular look was for. I had been an English professor for nearly twenty-five years, had lived and breathed the same atmosphere at the college, just as the Bumsteads and Stowrights had, but I still couldn't understand the often petulant academic mind. It occurred to me that Bumstead's glare signaled his jealousy, for this was the first time since the dinner of two hours ago that Lorenzo or Bumstead had acknowledged me. It had been rumored about the campus that Bumstead and Lorenzo were more than simply close friends.
        Of course, upon this dreadful occasion, I considered saying something disrespectful, like "You know, gentlemen, my girl friend has a very attractive set of landing gear. I wonder if you're interested." If the senior vice president had not been in our company, I would not have hesitated to say something so insensitive that my colleagues would likely have secretly wished me dead.
        Nonetheless, I readily warmed up to the invitation to enter the discussion. Listening to the monotonous fall of the rain, wishing that I were in a warmer place, I said, "Yes, the subject is quite intriguing. I know very little about it except that the Americans fashioned their own landing gear after that of the Japanese. Though a backward country before and during World War II, Japan had developed a kind of landing gear for their airplanes that we could only hope to imitate. Something called the K-X-666, I believe." I couldn't wait for Bumstead's response.
        "Oh, my, really, you don't say, Lewis, you don't say," Lorenzo commented, obviously pleased that I was able to contribute something to this conversation, perhaps that I seemed to share a fascination with this subject that outshone Bumstead's. "I have never read anything about the Japanese airplanes used in World War II. Why, my word, it has never even occurred to me to purchase a book on the subject. How awful. How terribly, hideously awful. What an incredible oversight on my part! K-X-666, huh?"
        "Yup," I responded. "The ole K-X-666. 'Satanic landing gear,' it was called." This remark brought a brief but very heavy silence.
        In spite of my remark, Lorenzo was duly impressed with me. Really, though he had been at the college for nearly ten years, he had never, never been in my company. Bumstead, however, had been drinking with me in the old days of the college (before he was spoiled by advancement) and was painfully aware of my propensity to pull the wool over my colleagues' eyes.
        "Why, Lewis," Bumstead hissed from his position on the couch, "I had no idea that you were such an expert on landing gear." Bumstead's twitching eyes were shooting daggers at me. "Why don't you tell us some more." I could have howled with laughter at this point, but I pulled my mask on all the more tightly.
        "Well, what would you like to know, Bumstead?" I asked, smiling and taking a drink of the Bud Lite that I had placed on the lamp table next to me and imaging that I was drinking my adversary's blood. My imagination now ignited, I was ready for the rest of the evening. The flames in the fireplace burned more brightly now.
        "Anything, Lewis, anything at all," Bumstead growled. "And it's Dr. Bumstead."
        "Well, let me see...," I began, loudly drumming my fingers on the lamp table next to me and intending to pursue this silly topic until someone changed the subject. I hhrrrumphed, I hawed, I sucked on my pipe—pop, pop, pop--which I always kept with me as a symbol intended to remind others that I was indeed a college English instructor. Though I looked a bit like Poe, I also had a Hemingwayesque beard, which I often put to pretentious use.
        "Hrrruumpphh, hhhrrrumph," came the sudden bark from across the room. Only I recognized the humorous tone of the bark. It was Dr. Stowright, who was on the verge of saying something significant. He sounded like an enormous seal awaking from a dream, and I knew his signal that a malicious bit of fun was about to begin.
        "Yes, Dr. Stowright, whatever is it?" said Dr. Lorenzo in a feminine whine, crossing his legs and then crossing his hands and interlacing his fat fingers across his huge belly. "I don't believe we have heard from you all night, have we? I was not at all sure you even had a voice, dear fellow. Come, now, what does the tall fellow from the woods of Northern Michigan have to say for himself, eh?"
        "Aaahhh," began Stowright. "Aaaahhhh." I had learned over the years that Dr. Stowright always signaled the beginning of one of his monologues in this fashion. I smiled.
        "Well, yes, what is it, man?" Bumstead asked Stowright impatiently, not taking his angry eyes off me. I was grinning hugely.
        "I was," began Stowright in his always very labored manner, "er, that is to say, I was, er, thinking that one of Shakespeare's plays contains a character who makes a speech concerning (shall we say) landing gear. I can't quite place the play or the fellow who delivers the speech, and I must admit that it is not one of the most notable speeches in the entire collection of Shakespeare's plays. Nonetheless, I am quite sure that Shakespeare, through one of his very minor tragical characters, does indeed allude to the invention of landing gear, quite a curiosity indeed since, I do believe, no one aside from the now sadly departed Leonardo da Vinci and perhaps a few others whom our historical footnotes fail to acknowledge even so much as gave a single thought to flying machines in those days, er, the sixteenth century. Was it in 'Lear'? No, I don't believe it was. The statement, I believe, goes something like this: 'And too, too laced with thickly whirling storms/ I my landing gear did seize/ and, perchance to wait, perchance to think, perchance to die/ did insert the cock steadfastly into its dark receptacle.' Hmmmm. I rather think that's a rather good rendition of, er, Shakespeare's rendition. Perhaps, then," said the enlightened Stowright, looking my way and giving a wink, "perhaps, then, it might have been the quite terrible Titus ...er...Titus...er... 'Titus Andronicus.' Or, no, maybe it was the tragical 'As You Like It.'"
        "Confound it!" Bumstead exclaimed, losing his patience for an instance, " 'As You Like It' is a goddamned comedy, not a tragedy. Any English Ph. D. worth his damned salt knows that!" Yelling, Bumstead was now quite beside himself. Through the dim light provided by the lamp, I could see his face turning beet red. I wondered if he had brought his blood pressure medication. "Now," Bumstead insisted, leaning back on the couch and staring at the fretted ceiling, "let's get back to...."
        "No, now wait a minute, my dear, dear, dear Dr. Bumstead," I corrected, "I think old Stowright here has a very good point. In fact," I continued, hoping that Dr. Lorenzo was as ignorant of Shakespeare as he was knowledgeable about landing gear, "I think literary critics and historians have very recently declared 'As You Like It' an early tragedy. I really do think Dr. Stowright has you on this one, Dr. Bumstead. I allude, of course, to that greatest of all contemporary Shakespeare critics, Ira Handel."
        "Ira what?" spat Bumstead, realizing that the evening had just slid beyond his slippery grasp. "Ira…. There is no one…."
        "Quite so, quite so," mumbled Stowright in a voice just loud enough to be heard over the increased rain fall outside. "I am now certain that I am right. Never wrong. Right as, hehehehe, dark red rain."
        "About what?" snapped Bumstead. "About what? About what!!?"
        "That Shakespeare did indeed put a nice piece about landing gear into the mouths of one of his minor characters. Not entirely uncharacteristic of old Will, since in several of his comedies characters do allude to the pastime that came to be known today as the exciting game of baseball." Sometimes, Stowright surprised me. Tonight, he was in rare form. The fire burned a slightly bloody red.
        "That's right!" I jumped in in a blatant attempt to take the topic further off course. "You are absolutely right, my good fellow. He speaks, Dr. Lorezno, of the tragedy 'Coriolanus.' In one of the final scenes, the great English bard indeed does refer to the men playing baseball. " Dumb as any post, Dr. Lorenzo sat rapt in attention.
        A long, uncomfortable silence ensued, the four of us sitting in the semi darkness listening to the wind howl gently through the foliage outside the living room window. I am sure Bumstead wished me and Stowright dead on the spot. My remark had been directed at Dr. Lorenzo, and the code dictated that we all wait until he had responded. But then an odd and somewhat upsetting event occurred: Dr. Lorenzo, far from responding, squirmed in his lawn chair, breathed and wheezed, and then positioning himself to one side released some gas from his no doubt bloated intestines.
        "Please pardon me, gentlemen," intoned an embarrassed Dr. Lorenzo. "It must have been Clarabelle's cooked beans, which I find always delicious but quite troublesome when it comes to matters of digestion. I must, in all haste, take care of this terrible situation."
        Indeed, the quite pleasant dinner had consisted of filet mignon steak, corn on the cob, potatoes, and baked beans. I had noticed during the dinner that Dr. Lorenzo had taken several helpings of his wife's baked beans, a sure invitation to indigestion
        As the big man waddled out of the room and up the stairs to the one running bathroom in the entire house, I looked over at Bumstead and smiled. Bumstead's hands were shaking badly as he struggled to light a cigarette he had just placed in his mouth. I could see that Bumstead was still red in the face and had been perspiring heavily.
        "Hey, boss," I chimed, "you all right? Enjoying the game?"
        Bumstead exhaled furiously and I had to laugh. "Fuck you, Lewis," came the response as Bumstead forcibly exhaled. "Just fuck you. Japanese landing gear, my ass. Baseball in Shakespeare, my bald ass!!! You're evil, Lewis, evil."
        "Evil is as evil does," I hissed . I raised my eyebrows in amusement and mockery and looked over at Stowright. "How you doin', Jaybird?" I asked, sincerely I should add.
        The big fellow stomped one foot on the carpeted floor and gave me a wink and a nod. I noticed that he had drawn his huge hunting knife and was delicately fingering the blade while glancing furtively at Bumstead. "Never better, Harry," said Stowright in a quietly grave voice, smiling hugely. "This is quite a lot of fun, don't you agree?" He eyed Bumstead maliciously for almost a minute. Bumstead never, never made eye contact with Stowright.
        "Oh, I definitely agree," I finally responded, taking another sip of my beer. "How about you, Bumstead? Still havin' fun?"
        "That's Dr. Bumstead," came the hateful retort. "And again: get fucked. Harry, in our younger days, I would have taken you outside and broken your nose. I still might. " I could see poor Bumstead trembling and felt my victory almost complete. In fact, I think it had occurred to Stowright and me, both tenured professors, that Bumstead had lost a bit of ground this evening. Bumstead's demise would be sweet and appropriate.
        "Yes," I responded, my thoughts black with burning hate, "but these are no longer the old days. Anyway, we should try to get along. After all, aren't the three of us going fishing bright and early tomorrow morning?"
        With that we heard the upstairs toilet flush, some one hacking loudly in an effort to clear phlegm from his throat, and the door burst open. A huge bear, the great man was on his way back, and as he descended the stairs, I began very loudly with, "And so, Stowright, why is it exactly that you do enjoy the novels of Jane Austen." I knew that Dr. Lorenzo enjoyed hearing his faculty talk shop. It meant that the college had used its money wisely.
        I was also taking quite a gamble, hoping that Dr. Lorenzo was acquainted with the writers whose novels filled his shelves. Dr. Lorenzo eased his enormous bulk into his chair, the flames in the fireplace now burning furiously.
        "Aaaaahhhh…..," began Stowright, "Aaaaaahhhh, yes, Jane Austen. She it is who we must now talk about. Aaaaahhhh, Jane Austen, I think, aaaaaaahhhhhh, gentlemen, was a rather (shall we say it?) naughty woman at times."
        "You don't say!" I exclaimed, sure that Dr. Lorenzo had heard Stowright's observation. "Naughty?? Jane Austen? Surely, surely, Ray, my good fellow, you do jest. Ho, ho, ho, ho, ho!"
I noticed that Bumstead was fuming and twitching. I half expected to see the steam coming out of his ears. Had the man been an epileptic, I would have done my best to induce a seizure.
        "Naughty, indeed???" came the booming voice of Dr. Lorenzo. "I have read quite a bit of Jane Austen, gentlemen," Dr. Lorenzo commented, stomping back into the room, looking much relieved. "I have, in fact, read all of Austen and never, never heard such a rumor. Are you quite sure, Stowright? Naughty Jane Austen? Oh, my, how deliciously intriguing. How intriguing."
        "I, too, sir," I obsequiously began, lending all my support to Stowright, "have heard such a rumor but have placed, until now, little credence in the notion that Jane Austen may have been a, shall we say, a regular little vixen."
        "Really!?" barked Lorenzo, clearly begging for more. "You don't say. Why, even I would like to hear this, as inappropriate as the topic may be for this particular company. Pray, continue, my very dear and gorgeous Stowright."
        I looked across the room at Bumstead and nearly laughed, an action which would not have met with the approval of Dr. Lorenzo. His arms belligerently crossed on his chest, his cigarette dangling from his mouth, Dr. Bumstead was staring hatefully at me out of the tops of his now bloodshot eyes. I swear I could see tears in his eyes. I smiled demonically.
        "Yes," I egged Stowright on, " tell us about Jane Austen's dark side."
        "Austen did not have a fucking dark side," fumed Bumstead in a distinctly sepulchral tone from across the room.
        "Elmer! Shut up!! Just shut up!!!" Dr. Lorenzo exclaimed. "What ever is the matter?" I could see Dr. Lorenzo's angry, petulant scowl and knew that, temporarily at least, Bumstead had fallen out of father with his superior.
        "Pardon me, sir," said Bumstead, raising his head and slowly turning toward Dr. Lorenzo. I almost had my foe check-mated. I could hear Bumstead's teeth grinding. "Pray continue, Stowright. Austen's dark side."
        "Well," began Stowright, and I noticed that the fire was blazing gloriously now, "some of this is quite shocking and not quite appropriate for gathering of sophisticated, learned individuals."
        "Sophistication be damned!" exclaimed Lorenzo with a loud laugh. Stowright had found Lorenzo's point of greatest weakness; in the years to come, we would exploit it ruthlessly. "I wanna hear about Jane Austen," Lorenzo insisted.
        Stowright looked at me, his eyes dancing in glee. I nodded. He began.
        "Well, what first drew me to Miss Austen's rather dark side was a little anecdote that I read years ago in an article that appeared in the prestigious 'Bangkok Review.' The author, er, er, ahhh, hhhhrrrruuuumpppphhhh, yes, the author: Dr. George Holyright of Cambridge. I am sure we have all heard of him by now. Anyway, as the story goes, Miss Austen was not infrequently seen visiting London taverns that quite often attracted people of , shall we say, not of lower social class but those who were attracted to…to..to…"
        "Uh, sexual perversity," I interjected to give my friend an encouraging boost. My imagination was running wild, like a howling wolf.
        Stowright sighed, feigning embarrassment. "Yes, that is the…uh… word for it, I suppose, though I dare not say it because to so label anything 'perverse' may verge on political incorrectness and have nasty repercussions for my own career. Let us therefore say that Miss Austen did on several occasions participate in activities that, today, are most likely relegated to X-rated films. (I have never in my life seen such a film, by the bye, nor do I have any intention of doing so.) However, in his ground-breaking article, Dr. Holyright provides more than ample documentation to prove that Miss Jane Austen was not quite so proper as her novels 'Emma' and 'Pride and Prejudice' do seem to suggest. Indeed, Dr. Holyright devotes one large section of his article to a rather detailed discussion of the infamous liaisons between Miss Austen and the odious rake—and High Priest of the Satanic Church, I should add--Lord Quentin Baltimore. Perhaps, before I tell of the anecdote, I should elaborate upon this Baltimore fellow…."
        And so, for the next two hours, Stowright—surely one of the greatest, most imaginative story tellers ever to walk the earth—fabricated episode after episode of the nefarious and heretofore hidden deeds of one of the greatest novelists in the English language, even going so far as to hint at bestiality and demonic possession. From time to time, to keep Bumstead pinned down, I reinforced Stowright, commenting that quite recently several well known critics had agreed upon such and such a point concerning Jane Austen's dark side. Lorenzo's response was always the same to my contributions: a cheerful, somewhat amused "You don't say so!!!" At the end of the evening, had one been nearby, I think Jaybird and I could have persuaded our senior vice president to visit a porn shop with us.
        It had turned out to be a great evening. Bumstead darkly fumed and twitched, Lorenzo listened (occasionally even smacking his lips), Stowright told whopping lie after whopping lie, the fire burned gloriously, and I once again reclined back in my chair, puffing contentedly away on my pipe. Dark fires burned within me.
        Outside, it was raining much, much harder, reminding me of the invigorating and deliciously dark world that lay beyond the confines of academia. My earlier mood of depression having fled, I could feel a cool mountain breeze blowing through the window, saturated with the freshness of the rain. I could almost imagine Annie on my lap, the two of us having furious and frenzied sex. The fire blazed furiously in the enormous fire place, and I hoped the evening would never end. I thought about the creek in the meadow.
        In the morning, just before sunrise, before the birds sang, Jaybird and I planned on taking Bumstead down to Northanger creek to do some serious fishing. There, we would kill him in cold blood.
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