Cape Cod Noir - By David L Ulin Page 0,1

its three-quarters of a century of evolution, both stylized and supple, less a way of writing than a way of seeing, less about crime or plot or killing (although there is plenty of that in these pages) than about how we live.

What I’m saying, I suppose, is that noir forces us to face things, that it cuts to the chase. It functions, to borrow a phrase from William S. Burroughs, as a kind of “NAKED Lunch—a frozen moment when everyone sees what is on the end of every fork.” We expect this when it comes to cities, where noir grew up during the Depression, or in the rural corners staked out by authors from Edward Anderson in the 1930s to Daniel Woodrell in the present day. Still, what my experiences on the Cape suggest is that noir is everywhere. You can see it in the desperate excitations of the summer people, the desire to make their vacations count. You can see it in the tension of the year-rounders, who rely on the seasonal trade for survival, even as they must tolerate having their communities overrun. You can see it in the history of the place; the Pilgrims landed first at Provincetown, after all. And after Labor Day, once the tourists have gone home, it is still a lot like it has always been: desolate, empty in the thin gray light, with little to do in the slow winter months. You drink, you brood, you wait for summer, when the cycle starts all over again.

When I was a kid, and first exploring my little corner of the Cape, I used to spend a lot of time alone. I would ride my bike or walk for hours, watching all the summertime activities, keeping myself a bit apart. Even then, I had the sense that there was more going on than I was seeing on the surface, that there were promises that had been left unkept. This, I’ve come to realize, is true everywhere, but it has a different feeling in a summer place. For me, Cape Cod is a repository of memory: forty summers in the same house will do that to you. But it is also a landscape of hidden tensions, which rise up when we least anticipate. In part, this has to do with social aspiration, which is one of the things that brought my family, like many others, to the Cape. In part, it has to do with social division, which has been a factor since at least the end of the nineteenth century, when the summer trade began. There are lines here, lines that get crossed and lines that never get crossed, the kinds of lines that form the web of noir. Call it what you want—summer and smoke is how I think of it—but that’s the Cape Cod at the center of this book.

David L. Ulin

March 2011

PART I

OUT OF SEASON

TEN-YEAR PLAN

BY WILLIAM HASTINGS

Falmouth

There was a time, just after I was jailed, when all I did was work, deal with my p.o., and keep my nose clean. No more shit, nothing. Just work, cash that paycheck every two weeks, stuff the bills into a hollowed-out book beneath my bed, and count the days. What I was counting for I didn’t know, but looking back on it, I guess I was counting days for some type of clearing, like that moment just after a thunderstorm when the clouds part and a little light sneaks through. Except that when things finally did part and clear, I didn’t get much light, but I saw it all damned well. Nice and clear, the only way you can from inside it.

To see the inside, I had to go back into a kitchen. It was a gig my p.o. lined up. He was tight with a restaurant owner. A tiny man, with child’s hands and a wide forehead, he smiled when he gave me that bit of news. The job took me back home, right back to the Cape. All I had to do was learn a new system and try to keep everyone happy.

That first day I drove my old truck down Main Street, Falmouth, looking at what seven years had done to the place. A new library spread across the town green, its marble still white. The tight, weed-free circles of mulch around the trees looked fresh. The storefront windows shone, clean and filled with goods that seemed to smile at you. There were some new stores, mostly small boutiques that sold