Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk (best time to read books txt) 📕

It's then Mrs. Clark says, “Tell me a story.” Through her veil, looking up at the Matchmaker in his sparkling, crystal tree, her silicone lips say, “Tell me something to forget I'm so hungry. Tell me a story you could never tell anyone.”

His hand twisting a peach, wrapped in a sticky scrap of dried-bloody velvet, the Matchmaker says, “There's a joke.” High on his piled-up ladder of chairs, he says, “There's a joke my uncles only tell when they're drinking . . .”

The Earl of Slander holds up his tape recorder.

Agent Tattletale, his video camera.

The Consultant

A Poem About the Matchmaker

“If you love something,” says the Matchmaker, “set it free.”

Just don't be surprised if it comes back with herpes . . .

The Matchmaker onstage, he slouches with his hands stuffed deep

in the pockets of his bib overalls.

His boots crusted with dried horse shit.

His shirt, plaid. Flannel. With pearl snaps instead of buttons.

Onstage, instead of a spotlight, a movie fragment:

of wedding videos where brides and grooms trade rings

and kiss to run outside to blizzards of white rice.

All this trickles across his face, the Matchmaker's bottom lip stretched to pocket a chaw

of chewing tobacco.

The Matchmaker says, “The girl I loved, she thought she could do better.”

This girl, she wanted a taller man, with a deep tan, long hair, and a bigger dick.

Who could play the guitar.

So she said “no” when he'd first kneeled down to propose.

So, the Matchmaker hired a whore named Steed, a male prostitute who advertised:

Long hair and a dick as thick as a can of chili. And who could learn

to play a few chords.

And Steed pretended to meet her by accident, at church. Then, again, at the library.

The Matchmaker paying two hundred dollars per date,

and taking notes as the whore told him how much the girl liked her nipples

played with from behind. And how best to make her come two or three times.

Steed sent her roses. He sang songs. Steed fucked her in back seats and hot tubs,

where he swore eternal love and devotion.

Then didn't call her for a week. Two weeks. A month.

Until he pretended to meet her by accident, at church again.

There, Steed said they were finished—because she was too slutty. Almost a whore.

“I swear,” the Matchmaker says, “he called her a whore. The nerve of that guy . . .”

God bless him.

All of this, the Matchmaker's secret plan to give his girlfriend

a premature, accelerated broken heart. Then catch her on the rebound.

His last meeting with Steed, he paid an extra fifty bucks for a blow job.

Steed kneeling there, at work between his knees.

This way, when his future wife had her well-researched, multiple orgasms,

the man in her head would not be a total stranger to her husband,

the Matchmaker.

Ritual

A Story by the Matchmaker

There's a joke the uncles only tell when they're drunk.

Half the joke is the noise they make. It's the sound of someone hawking up spit from the back of his throat. A long, rasping sound. After every family event, when there's nothing left to do except drink, the uncles will take their chairs out under the trees. Out where we can't see them in the dark.

While the aunts wash dishes, and the cousins run wild, the uncles are out back in the orchard, tipping bottles back, leaning back on the two rear legs of their chairs. In the dark, you can hear one uncle make the sound: Shooo-rook. Even in the dark, you know he's pulled one hand sideways through the air in front of him. Shooo-rook, and the rest of the uncles laugh.

The aunts hear the sound and it makes them smile and shake their heads: Men. The aunts don't know the joke, but they know anything that makes men laugh so hard must be stupid.

The cousins don't know the joke, but they make the sound. Shooo-rook. They pull a hand through the air, sideways, and fall down laughing. Their whole childhood, all the kids did it. Said: Shooo-rook. Screamed it. The family's magic formula to make each other laugh.

The uncles would lean down to teach them. Even as little kids, barely on two legs, they'd mimic the sound. Shooo-rook. And the uncles would show how to pull one hand sideways, always from left to right, in front of your neck.

They'd ask—the cousins, hanging off the arm of an uncle, kicking their feet in the air—they'd ask, what did the sound mean? And the hand motion?

It was an old, old story an uncle might tell them. The sound was from when the uncles were all young men in the army. During the war. The cousins would climb the pockets of an uncle's coat, a foot hooked in one pocket, a hand reaching for the next pocket higher up. The way you'd climb trees.

And they'd beg: Tell us. Tell us the story.

But all an uncle would do is promise: Later. When they were grown up. The uncle would catch you under the arms and throw you over his shoulder. He'd carry a cousin that way, running, racing the other uncles into the house, to kiss the aunts and eat another slice of pie. You'd pop popcorn and listen to the radio.

It was the family password. A secret most of them didn't understand. A ritual to keep them safe. All the cousins knew was, it made them laugh together. This was something only they knew.

The uncles said the sound was proof that your worst fears might just disappear. No matter how terrible something looked, it might not be around tomorrow. If a cow died, and the other cattle looked sick, swelling with bloat and about to die, if nothing could be done, the uncles made the sound. Shooo-rook. If the peaches were setting in the orchard and a frost was predicted that night, the uncles said it. Shooo-rook. It meant the terror you were helpless to stop, it might just stop itself.

Every time the family got together, it was their