The Road to Vent Haven: Moonlight to Burn

• The Murder of the Adequate Rando
• I Was Made to Love You

Masbet Christianto

I did not let Woodrow out until we were over the state line, into Pennsylvania. It was superstition. Outside of the club, the chances that anyone would recognize him were vanishingly small.

When I opened the bag, he spent a minute straight hacking, then complained about how stuffy that had been.

"Not your best bit," I said.

"That's because the only thing people attributed to my humor was when that asshole, Randy, had his hand up mine. He had no sense of comic timing. That's why he was never any better than the Adequate Rando." He sniffed for effect. "Like beating them to the insult makes it any better?"

Woodrow was far from the first dummy to complain to me about their vent. It was a habit with them, resenting those who forced them to "talk." It was not universal. Sometimes, the relationship was copacetic when the ventriloquist treated the dummy with respect (and not too much projection, as though they were children). Spot clean their fabric, keep their hair neat and punchlines tight, put them into cases gently (or better yet, don't put them in at all), and they almost liked their vents. They were not always delighted that I could hear them, but it was an honest conversation for once.

(You didn't ever call their vents "owners." A dummy was never owned, just currently stuck with someone against their will.)

Woodrow on stage, in the hands of Randy, was a simpering moron. Every punchline was at the dummy's expense. Most of these were weak puns about wood. The best he ever came up with was that Woodrow masturbated so much looking at a woman who was "flat as a board" that he caught fire.

I couldn't disagree with Woodrow's observation for why Randy chose to call himself "The Adequate." You didn't name your dummy Woodrow if you had an ounce of originality in your head. Randy wasn't even much of a ventriloquist, depending on the schtick of a mask over his head to cover for his lips still moving on B's, P's, and M's. Of the two of them, I would rather have a conversation with Woodrow any day of the week.

That was the core of the late Randy's issues with me: I did not think he was funny. Whenever I laughed during his set, it was because Woodrow tore him to shreds, offering up better punchlines than Randy would have thought of with a month to plan. Woodrow came from the school of the recently departed Sam Kinison by way of Don Rickles, a classic insult comic with a flare for screaming and a fury for hypocrisy. If he were human, he would have been an enormous pain in my ass whose set I would never miss. As a dummy, even I found myself dismissing him. It becomes harder to see them as a person when you can walk out of a room to escape an argument--particularly when no one else can tell you are talking to a doll.

Woodrow was barely removed from his ancestor, sitting on the lap of Edgar Bergen. No monocle or top hat, of course. Modern audiences wouldn't endure that. Instead, he was dressed in a flannel shirt, jeans, and John Lennon glasses, which did not suit him at all. The glasses had come off in the bag. When I reached in to retrieve them, Woodrow threatened to bite off my arm if I even thought about putting them back on. He looked more like a slacker without them, which I liked better.

I turned the radio on, flipping between stations until I found one that wasn't playing pop or country. I hovered over one playing eighties metal, but I couldn't handle that right now. Too on edge already. At last, I found one playing alternative, music that didn't seem yet to have a solid definition. The genre explained by not really being anything else.

After a few songs of otherwise silence in the car, I started singing along.

"Hey," Woodrow said, "who sings that?"

"Soundgarden, it's--"

"Then why don't you let Chris Cornell do the heavy lifting, hm?" he said, snide as he could. "'Like Suicide'? What the hell is it with you kids and suicide? You think you've got it bad? What the hell have you ever had happen in your whole damn life that would be worth one to the back of your throat?"

This sounded oddly empathetic from him, and I didn't know where this was coming from.

"It's like that Cobain fella, couple months back. Had a wife and kid--new kid, basically--and he blows his brains out. Now you all think he's some goddamn hero because he took the coward's way out," he grumbled. "Mind you, if I married to that crazy bitch, I'd be wondering if the shotgun kissed better."

I didn't want to hear Woodrow dig into me about the problems with my generation. I'd had a father once and didn't need one now. And he wasn't wrong. I'd be lying if I said I didn't think about suicide once or twice in the last year, things going as they'd been going. It wasn't the sort of conversation I was apt to have with Woodrow--or any puppet, to be honest.

"Are you okay?" I asked.

"You promise me right now that you aren't going to die on me," said Woodrow. "Randy, he could die. No loss there. So, promise."

"What are you on about?"

"I said promise, Chuck," he snapped, sounding as uncomfortable saying this as I was to hear it.

I tapped the steering wheel to the end of the song, unthinking. "I'm not going to kill myself."

"Damn right, you aren't."

I turned down the radio. "But you could make that much easier by telling me who killed--"

"I'll tell you when it's time to tell you, buddy. Not before."

I pulled into an all-night diner outside Scranton. I unfastened my belt and was almost out the door when Woodrow piped up.

"I sure as hell hope you don't think you are leaving me in here while you stuff your face, Chuckles."

That was my hope. Dummies don't sleep, but they go quiet, and it feels almost the same. "How am I going to look going into a diner at 2 AM with a ventriloquist dummy?"

"Like the sort of guy who goes into a diner at 2 AM with a ventriloquist dummy. What kind of question is that?" he demanded, his offense sounding genuine. "You think anyone else in there is better than you? You are Charles Goddamn Lavender. You hold me under your arm, you march your ass in there, you slam your hand on the table, you look them in the damn eyes, and you demand a table. Fucking dare them to say a word to you, buddy." He paused a moment as I didn't comply. "Bud, either we are partners in this, or we aren't. If you aren't going to treat me right, you leave me right here in the parking lot because your word doesn't mean a damn."

I did feel encouraged enough by his pep talk and guilted by the rest. I unbuckled him, cradling him a moment in the transition. "Of course, we're partners in this. Of course."

"Chuckles thinks truckers hopped up on speed and lot lizards are going to make fun of him," said the dummy, dangling in my arms, "but at least you know he's good for a cuddle."

"You want to get to Vent Haven?" I reminded him. "Maybe less sass."

"You want to avoid being someone's prison girlfriend?" he gave a single derisive laugh. "Let's get in that diner before someone out there gets it in their heads that you are snatching a baby."

I put Woodrow beside me in a booth, hoping both that it would satisfy him and keep him from being seen and asked about.

The server--a mousy brunette, hair in a messy bob, kohl-black eyes, magenta lipstick--took my order, then gestured with the end of her pen afterward to Woodrow. "Anything for your friend?"

I had to play this right. The wrong joke, and I would spend the next hour listening to Woodrow croak The Pixies discography to mock me. Being humorless would only annoy the server. She caught enough shit working these hours and didn't need it from me.

"Nah," I said. "I'll just have a glass of water while he sings a medley of Twisted Sister."

"You can do that?" Her eyes brightened, shaking her out of her zombified state, keen to see the trick.

"I wish," I said. "I'm bringing him to a friend and" -- I forced an embarrassed smirk -- "I felt strange leaving him in the car."

This might have tickled her more than throwing my voice would have. If I didn't have anywhere more pressing to be, I would have offered her my number and the use of my backseat. Chances were good that she would have accepted at least one.

I'd spent enough time around vents in my years of hearing puppets that you'd think I would have picked up something. When I was about fifteen, I just about got in the pants of a girl with a hedgehog puppet among the dolls she had yet to find the heart (or mortification) to bag up. I'm not sure what the hedgehog got from divulging this girl's sex fantasies to me, whether it was an act of self-preservation or awareness that the sooner the girl lost her panties, the sooner he would end up on the dusty back shelf of a Salvation Army. I dumped her cold when the hedgehog confessed how avidly the girl had begun enjoying sex with someone who was not me. A couple of someones, it turned out. That puppet begged me to take him with me during the breakup. There was no way to do that and not seem like a permanent social moron. And, to be honest, I was at that point--more teenage boys are--and wanted to kill the messenger.

I knew all the basics of ventriloquism, but I couldn't put them together, not when doing so would talk over their voices. A couple of dummies had tried to take pity on me and walk me through it, but it was as much natural ineptitude as a psychological block.

"So, Randy?" I asked in a low voice, hiding my lips behind my mug of acceptable diner coffee.

"You want to do this right now?" asked Woodrow. "You don't see any flaw in that plan? Talking to yourself in a strange diner in the middle of the night?"

"You talk," said. "I'm fine listening."

"Oh, I bet you are, but I'm not feeling chatty."

Irritation prickled over my skin, helped in no way by the smallness of the hour. "I have never been anything less than straight with you. I'm going to take you to Kentucky. You know it. You're not going to give me anything?"

"Vent Haven. I'm telling you that, and it's all you need to know," said the dummy. "Trust in God. Everybody else pays cash upfront."

He didn't say anything much after that, and I didn't press him, though I was close to frustration. I sipped my coffee until the waitress--Winona, according to her handwritten name tag--brought me a refill.

She lingered near my table, not much saying anything, but catching my eye and smiling. I scanned the haggard faces around me and granted that I was the best prospect tonight by a country mile.

After bringing me a full breakfast--pancakes, eggs over medium, hash browns, and bacon--Winona left me to tend to some familiar drunks in need of sobering up. I was sorry for this. I enjoyed company not involved with my being a witness to a murder.

Winona slid into the seat across from me. "So, bud, you got a thing for dummies?"

"I'm Charlie," I said, offering my hand. Before I could stop myself, I added, "he's... it's a ventriloquial figure. That's the preferred nomenclature among vents."

She raised an eyebrow. "Nomenclature, huh, Charlie?" Any offer of companionship was vanishing, but it was a slow night, and I wasn't the weirdest guy she'd seen recently; she was willing to engage me in this conversation to pass some time until her shift ended. "What's the difference?"

"Something like this guy?" I put Woodrow on the table, back against the condiments. "He goes for thousands of dollars, depending on who made him. He's carved from wood, not any sort of plastic. He's kind of like an artwork."

She leaned forward in pretended conspiracy. "I say we fence him and hit Atlantic City. We could gamble a little, get a room, lobster dinner, see where the day takes us."

I smirked, though Woodrow mentioned some other places he would invite her to visit that were a lot hotter.

"That would be blasphemy. Ventriloquism was once sacred," I told her. "Priests spoke from their stomachs believing they were communing with the unliving, who set up shop there."

"So, their stomach is full of the dead?"

"Not the dead as much as things that can't die. Spirits more than ghosts, but the dead, too, in a pinch. Whatever gets the gold flowing."

She bit her lip. "What does your stomach tell you?"

"That I like the company a touch more than the pancakes," I said.

With the tips of candy red nails, she snatched a triangle of pancake from my plate, popping it in her mouth. "Not the cook's best work."

"They could be the finest pancakes I'd ever had, and I would have said the same."

She snickered. "You are one hell of a flirt, my friend."

"You deserve it." I smiled back. My stomach might not have been saying anything, but my body was.

"Chuck," said Woodrow, "either take the young lady to the bathroom for the best two minutes of her life or wrap this up. Places to be, moonlight to burn."

I swatted his leg.

"You think they are magic, then, your vents?" I liked how she had adopted the lingo, though I didn't want ownership over that art or those who practiced it.

"No, though some of them get it in their heads that they are closer to God," I said. "It could get you burned at the stake centuries ago. Throwing your voice is close enough to consorting with demons."

She pushed herself higher in the booth, taking another look at Woodrow. "He doesn't look like much of a demon."

"Now who's the flirt?" asked Woodrow. "If I had a dick, the time I'd show this girl."

The sugar, caffeine, and stars outside--and Winona's company--loosened my tongue better than booze ever would. I'd done my research once I realized I was alone in hearing puppets-a lot on how people gave puppets voices and why, nothing about hearing them otherwise.

"Yeah, so," she said, "you got a thing for dummies."

"I'm not sure. Given this conversation, maybe you do?" I leaned forward, rallying a smirk.

"You'd be so lucky." She rolled her eyes but affectionately. I wasn't the most handsome man, but it was like my dad told me once: if you got born deficient downstairs, you'd better get good using your tongue. It took me years before I got the nuance of that--not that anything was lacking. I could talk my way out of trouble about as well as I could get into it.

I left twenty on the table, about a hundred percent tip. I figured that would be enough to have made the time she wasted on me worth her while.

I buckled Woodrow back in the car. We had another eight and a half hours until we passed through Ohio and got to Vent Haven. I was good for another five, I figured. Then, I'd be coasting on fumes. I'd get him to the museum, figure out how to drop him off properly, then find a place my car would not be noticed for a few hours and get some rest. With luck, I could make my shift at the club that night, and no one would have any idea I'd peaced out after Randy hit the floor.

The highway was straight; no need for a turn off until Ohio. Some traffic, but not enough that it would impact the trip. The sound of the road lulled me enough that I turned the radio back on, switching between stations for the loudest music.

Woodrow was not much of a conversationalist now. He didn't need sleep, couldn't do it. It seemed almost rude that he was silent in the passenger's seat. I looked over at him, the beams of streetlights passing over his face, and imagined that I saw emotion on his face. Pensiveness. Worry. Maybe concern. But, no, it was only ever the same wood and lacquer as always.

When I left him at Vent Haven, this is how he would look forever. No one would make him speak again, but I doubted anyone would listen to him either. He would be silent and unchanging. I felt sorry for him, though I knew he would have torn into me if I said as much. I thought of floating the idea of his staying with me, but I'd given him my word, and I still needed something from him. I would keep my promise.

Somewhere around Bloomsburg, he said, "You had some kind of trouble, right, Chuck? That's why you were dealing with Randy's shit in the Catskills and not, I don't know, wasting your time being disaffected in some English grad program."

The road signs began to blur in front of me. I blinked hard to clear them. I needed to get to Ohio. Maybe I could get a few hours' rest then. But, no, I had my schedule.

"Yeah, I had some trouble," I admitted.

"What trouble are we talking about?" When I shook my head, he taunted, "We're partners, right? Can't have secrets."

"I listened to the wrong dummy," I said, knowing the drive was too long to put up with him niggling at me. "I should have played it cool, but I didn't. It shined some unwelcome light on a criminal enterprise."

He did not say anything for a few minutes. Then, he said, "You tried to impress a girl, didn't you, Chuckles?"

"A woman who, it turned out, was the ex of one of the guys I sicced the cops on. He said he would wear my balls as a bolo tie if he ever saw me again."

"'Balls as a bolo tie!" He guffawed in the way only someone who didn't breathe could, long and uninterrupted. "Truly, the soul of a poet."

"The cops weren't any too happy with me, either. One of them was on the take, that came out. He got fired, lost his pension." I felt a lurch, saying these things out loud, even to someone who could never share the secret. "That old story, you know? So, in one swoop, I pissed off a gang and the cops. I'd like to keep my name out of the news, keep my low profile."

"Yeah," he said, "but did you get a piece of that?"

"No," I said. "She felt bad for her ex, got back together with him."

"You're a regular Cupid, buddy."

We talked, though not of anything this consequential. We argued about the state of modern music, how grunge killed glam rock and what would kill it.

"Aerosmith just let people download a new song off the internet," I said.

"Yeah, but they're shit now. They've been shit for a decade," he said. "You know, Aerosmith is going to be the thing that kills off your music. Not them directly, mind you. What they represent. Bands are going to sell out. Whatever you think is rebellious now will be used to sell you laxatives in a decade. You'll all get old and conservative. Your Saint Cobain put it well: 'teenage angst has paid off well, now I'm bored and old.' It's all about money. You'll get that. You think you are edgy now, but I've seen people like you start to lose your hair and then lose your mind."

"Kurt didn't."

"Putting a bullet in your brain is no solution to a problem," he said, genuinely angry. "That's worse than selling out. He didn't burn out rather than fade away. He gave up. You don't get that luxury, buddy. You get to be bored and old. Congrats."

I wasn't the best at subtext, I'll grant you, but I got that. "What about you, though?"

He coughed, parodying a wheeze. "I'm plenty old enough to know better than you. Mind your elders."

Around Youngstown, we sang "Paradise by the Dashboard Lights," him taking Ellen Foley's parts because he had the range. He promised to do worse than using my testicles as accessories if I ever breathed a word of it.

How we made it through Ohio, I will never know.

"We're stopping here," Woodrow said suddenly. I was bleary from the drive, but I knew we weren't at the museum yet. Close, but not there.

"This is a hotel," I pointed out. "Not that I couldn't use one at this point."

"Look at the brain on this guy," Woodrow said, too full of sarcasm for this hour, coming up on the wrong side of morning. "Chuckles, read the damned marquee, would you?"

Vent Haven ConVENTion 1994