Flee Read online

  Also by Evan Dara:

  The Lost Scrapbook

  Chosen by William T. Vollmann as winner of the National Fiction Competition

  “This first novel suggests the ambitious debuts of Joseph McElroy (A Smugglers Bible) and Thomas Pynchon (V.), but author Evan Dara pushes the bar back upward to the height of William Gaddis The Recognitions … It takes some work to look back at The Lost Scrapbook and say, ‘Aha, so that’s how all those parts fit together,’ and then ‘Aaah,’ which signifies satisfaction or, with a different spelling, awe.”

  —The Washington Post

  “A vast accomplishment. Monumental, cunning, and unforgiving.”

  —Richard Powers

  “Evan Dara’s magnificent novel [is crafted] as if James Joyce had widened the narrative ear of Ulysses … If this really is Mr. Dara’s first novel, then he is either a young phenom or a well-practiced, reclusive treasure.”

  —Chelsea Review

  “Powerful, hysterically funny, and evocative … Stretches the boundaries of what novels can be and mean.”

  —The Los Angeles Reader

  “A radiant, innovative work filled with engaging characters.”

  —Time Out New York

  “The most formidable political novel of the 1990s.”

  —Jeremy Green, “Late Postmodernism: American Fiction at the Millennium”

  “Dazzling …encyclopedic …a poignant meditation on isolation and community … encompassing the voices of America in a spirit of Whitmanesque accumulation that is brilliantly innovative and compassionate.”

  —Rain Taxi

  “The most pure fiction I’ve ever read … The books behind the hot books exist, and if you give them chance enough, they scorch you. While fiction suffers elsewhere, Dara revolutionizes it.”

  —Oculus

  “A towering piece of American literature and one of the best three novels of the nineties.”

  —The Fictional Woods

  “An extremely impressive work, Dara’s epic deserves wider exposure”

  —The Modern Word

  “Some have called this the best American novel of the 1990s … Anyone with even a passing interest in the contemporary novel needs to read this book, which is truly a lost classic. This is a great book that deserves a wider readership”

  —Known Unknowns

  “A dazzling novel. Dara is just a boon companion, whose startling technical brilliance never impedes the whitewater rush of this hilarious and original narrative. A mind-blowingly fun book.”

  —Popula Culture

  “The best book you may not have heard of.”

  —The Dust Congress

  The Easy Chain

  “It’s good to know that writers like Dara exist, capable of bravely carrying the flame … [with this] very intricately crafted and grandly conceived novel.”

  —The Review of Contemporary Fiction

  “One of the best novels of the decade … The magic of his writing and what he accomplishes through it is …manifested in how mesmerizing, hypnotic and just plain readable Evan Dara is.”

  —The Quarterly Conversation

  “If there is any literary justice [The Easy Chain] will appear sometime around 2050 in a New York Review of Books Classics edition with a forward by the aging Dave Eggers … Both of Daras novels are astonishing - challenging, funny, groundbreaking, stylish, brave. They are big contemporary novels where ambition and execution are both huge and come together perfectly.”

  —Conversational Reading

  “This masterpiece left us drooling for days on end. We couldn’t put it down.”

  —Lowdown Magazine (Germany/UK)

  “Recalls David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest: both books offer a jigsaw puzzle of different styles, and construct a remarkably clever and complex plot.”

  —Stephen J. Burn, American Book Review

  “Just brilliant …a testament to [Dara’s] incredible skill … Dara is the best-kept secret in all of contemporary American literature. For all their formal innovation, Dara’s novels are both exceptionally funny and surprisingly warm and human. Anyone who reads either book will discover perhaps the most interesting author writing in English today.”

  —Triple R Radio (Melbourne, Australia)

  “Uncommon and outstanding. As surely as there will always be an avant-garde, Dara will be there and whatever new guard emerges, they will be sure to have read his books.”

  —The Front Table

  To:

  KWMB

  and

  MF

  and

  AS

  and

  RP

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, institutions, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  FLEE. Copyright © 2013 by Evan Dara. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  Published by Aurora, Inc., New York and Roma.

  For information: www.auroral48.com

  Dara, Evan

  Flee: a novel

  ISBN 978-0-9802266-2-1

  First Edition

  Ebook edition prepared from first printing 2013

  Jacket and Book Design: Todd Michael Bushman

  Table Of Contents

  38,839

  38,842

  36,551

  35,717

  34,918

  30,507

  22,112

  9,441

  336

  X

  841

  38,839

  Something always going on—

  —There’s the kitchenware festival over at Homeport—

  —Chorus rehearsal’s re-starting on—

  —The Patriots’re heading into Indianapolis tonight—

  —And oh, you know, the Honeybell oranges are really good this year, amazingly sweet and nectary. They’re tree-ripened and they’re just up from Florida, you can only get them for like two weeks a year, they’re sent express by airplane then hauled all over the Northeast in refrigerator trucks even though it’s winter … And you know, I just sit at my table crying all down my shirt because their season is so short, and they are just so, so, so—

  —Yoga at two – good: Iyengar on Tuesdays—

  —Then the plumber-guy’s coming to look at the leak all spraying behind the showerhead. I mean, my daughter – Jennie – she just reached up for the conditioner and—

  —That Conoco spreadsheet has to be tweaked before—

  —My little girl’s due at the—

  —Yeah, she shouldn’t worry about such things, I told her that, I told Celia directly. And she – up, wait, my cell—

  —And she was right: I have to get beyond all that. So I did it: I put a note in my day planner to ignore everything in my day planner—

  —O drat. Left my henna kit at Shayna’s. Stupid, stupid—

  —Shit. Got to go back outside.

  —What is it today – ten degrees …? Eight de—?

  —Cold as Copenhagen—

  —Then to the dry clean – then Jack at the train station at five forty-one—

  —Wind coming off Lake Chamoon like pure voltage—

  —Shock you anywhere you don’t cover up!

  —Anything you’re forgetful, trusting – stupid – enough not to totally cover—

  —Even between your glove and your sleeve. Even the tiniest, tiniest top part of your cheek, nicking, prickling—

  —Hate putting those galoshes on …flappy gristle in your hands, sour-oil smell just fearsome, pull them walruses over the fronts of
your shoes and no matter what you do: stick; stick; stick-tug-stick; stick like cement, like they ain’t never gonna—

  —Shit it co—

  —And man – dark so damn early. 4 p.—

  —Heard it got down to six degrees in Boston—

  —Two degrees in Montreal.

  —Man. Can’t we just import a boatload of that good global warm—

  —And my accountant wants me to—

  —I like it. I like the wintertime. The city comes back to itself. It regains something. All the litter? It’s, like – gone. You can get a sesame bagel at Bruegger’s at two thirty in the afternoon. Hank at Shanty’s – at the bar there – he’ll talk to you again. That constant, constant double-parking in front of City Market, and the cars always crawling around in town … Finally! Space!

  —You can walk down College Street without getting bumped and twisted and—

  —Beautiful in the snow—

  —For two days til it turns to yush—

  —Whole town becomes a cappuccino – white foam on the cars, and on all the tree branches, and on every fence crosspiece you see, smoke rising and drifting from—

  —Such a lovely, lovely city—

  —Capital of New England, you ask me. Great town, great, great place to live. Three Thai restaurants and all the walk paths in Waterfront Park, and in Leddy Park, another café for every day of the week, all of them now have baskets with free newspapers and that Wi-Fi – for free!

  —Talks and concerts over at the University—

  —Nice scrunchy warm inside the jacket—

  —What we got: twenty-six inches already this winter—?

  —Twenty-eight …?

  —Heard it was the worst in sixty years. More snow than we normally get in—

  —The Jaspers have two cars so packed under they’re just gonna leave ’em til spring!

  —Thank God the three others in the garage’ll run OK—

  —Truck out on I-89 took quite a skid. Jackknifed (a bit), all kindsa steam coming off her—

  —Cars snailing waaaay to the right to go around her—

  —So this is a perfect night for the meeting. Perfect. Cold outside and indoors – warm. They got free coffee and those big tins of butter cookies, they set it up so’s the parking’s free in the lot right next to the hall … What else anyone got to do on a night like this?

  —Couldn’t have asked for better: it ain’t snowing—

  —But shit: look who’s here. Look who’s here.

  —Shih—

  —Same old same old—

  —Mm. Hm.

  —How could so few—?

  —Heartbreaking—

  —And Rick, I mean, he is kickin’ ass: I saw signs all up and down Cherry Street for this evening. And in Fletcher Library and in Price Chopper and a big notice in the Seven Days and … And, I mean, for Rick – I have never seen the guy so motivated, he’s really pushing this thing—

  —Nah. It’s too cold. Too cold for anybody to go out of their—

  —And it being so freezing and all – that should be publicity for this deal!

  —You want to save money on heating your home, you get behind this—!

  —Come on – even Mayor Farina isn’t here …again.

  —Tell me something I couldn’t tell you.

  —And look at John Krim Fallows trying to put a glaze on things—

  —Of course—

  —Shaking hands, waggling all them teeth, passing Rachel the cup of coffee he just poured for hisself—

  —In his suit—

  —So, what are there – what: eleven people here? Eleven people in this whole hall? Place could hold a hundred and fifty. There’s Leo and over there there’s Rick, there’s—

  —That Marcus in the back over there …?

  —Is Marcus Carter here?

  —Nah. He isn’t … He’s—

  —So OK, fourteen. Fourteen people in this whole plucking—

  —Got to break Rick’s heart.

  —And Carol, Carol’s been working real hard for him, for this—

  —Rick has got to be hurting—

  —Even fewer than last meeting. Shoot. Must have had forty, forty-five people in here last month—

  —Forty people all screamin’ at—

  —No hats flying round this time—

  —Poor Rick. Poor fucking guy. Puts on his good blue shirt, and presses it, and gets all up in his dark blue tie again, actually takes a blade to his neck scuzz and tell me if I’m wrong: those Wallabees of his, so ridiculous, they actually cleaned up—?

  —And then just having to sit there at the table up front with all those photocopies he prepares—

  —Talking with John Krim Fallows—

  —Like pleading with John Krim Fallows, looking down, faltering—

  —I really hoped Mayor Farina would be here this time.

  —So, what: what we gonna—

  —This make any sense to—

  —Catdog, there is no reason to stay here any—

  —OK, folks, Rick says.

  —OK, he says, standing, speaking all loud.

  —Standing up but still looking down—

  —Not wanting to see the empty chairs, the walls with no moving shadows—

  —And what little chatter there was in the hall, it quieted down—

  —I know, Rick says, I know we’re all a little disappointed here this evening—

  —This isn’t really what we’d been hoping for—

  —Wiping hair from his forehead—

  —But John has been nice enough to agree that we should wait til eight forty-five, and see if maybe the weather’s delaying people a bit—

  —Right. What’s another twenty minutes gonna—

  —Meanwhile, I was thinking we could …, Rick says—

  —You know, Rick says. I thought we might—

  —Come on, Ricky, Ezra says.

  —I’m—

  —Let’s just call it a night.

  —It’s—

  —Oh man, Carol says, standing up in the front row, then turning to face the hall, all the empty seats.

  —What you …?, she says. Where’s your spunk, Ezra? You just gonna let this thing go without a—

  —Well. Carol. I mean—

  —This is worthwhile, man. This is important. Really – what could be more important than this?

  —Well, it doesn’t seem too important to too many—

  —So we do more, Carol says. So we work harder. Guys – I mean, come on: Rick and I been wrangling this monster for nearly two years. Can’t you—

  —It’s OK, Car, Rick says.

  — ’’S OK.

  —And whoop a whomp of silence reaches around, hooks the hall in a half nelson. And in it: A crick of floorboard. The click of Chris putting his paper cup on a table. Randall slowly zipping up his coat, then stopping. Whew. Heavy. A tug, a teething in your gut—

  —See you all next time, Ezra says.

  —Thanks, Rick and Carol, Ezra says. Thanks, John.

  —He picks up his duffle bag.

  —Anyone up for Three Needs?, Marcia says. Anyone want to join me there for a quick—?

  —No thanks, Ezra says. I … Better off getting home.

  —So, wait, OK?, Chris says. Just wait a second. What we gonna do about …?

  —Jeez, I—

  —We just got to get the word out.

  —We’ve just got to get people to understand that this is a good thing, Carol says. I mean, for them personally. Rick’s idea is really good.

  —Carol sits on the front table. We just make it clear to people that one, this will save them money, and two, that it’ll be good for A-burg – for the environ—

  —And three, that it’ll save them money, and four through five million, that it’ll save them mon…

  —

  —C’mon, Phil …

  —What. Carol …? What’s that look? What’s that look?

  —

  —OK.
Sorry, C.

  —’S OK, Carol says. So. So how do we—?

  —Yeah; how. We’ve promoted this left and right—

  —We go stand on Church Street buttonholing people—?

  —Draw them a map—?

  —Offer beer—

  —How about moving the meetings to the University?, Rick says. Why don’t we—?

  —That’ll bring in more people, probably—

  —Lot more people.

  —Not that that would be too diffi—

  —But most, much of the students there – and the faculty, too – they’re not from Anderburg. They’re from other—

  —Hm.

  —Yeah …

  —Great idea while it lasted, Carol says …

  —And there’s that other thing.

  —What.

  —You know.

  —What

  —You …? The University’s closed.

  38,842

  What did—?

  —How – what were—?

  —OK: had to admit it: I couldn’t move forward without the Krugman book. And I had been so disciplined: Right after my Christmas belly ran aground – probably took a full two days, Aunt Jenny had done most of the cooking – including her signature sweet-potato pancakes, which manage to nail both crispy and fluffy – I figured I’d get a jump on a paper I’d have to do for spring term. Professor Davidson – well, adjunct – had declared a minimum of eight pages for this opus, ergo, desperation. So first thing in the morning – that’s winter-break morning, AKA ten forty-five – I got straight on Google – no e-mails, no MySpacer, no Lakers checkups on CNBC – and started to mole around.

  The paper was for the Macro course they make us take, and via a samizdat research aggregator out of Chapel Hill I found some OK dope about exchange rates and stability, which was, sorry I didn’t mention this, the assignment I got. There was good stuff about resisting devaluation and about serial correlations of forecast errors, but, I don’t know, it just didn’t seem good enough – at least not good enough for Professor Davidson, who’s a toughie – so when I stopped swatting myself for forgetting the Krugman, which, I assure you, is good enough, I decided to just go and grab the missing paperback. West Topsham – my town – is maybe fifty minutes driving from Anderburg, so no big d.

  It’s always possible to get into the dorms – they keep them open during break, with a security guard chawing something tooth-gooping at each entrance – and roads plus snow stopped intimidating me long ago, so off I went. (OK, sorry, next day.) Riddle Pond Road up to 302, then through Barre and Montpelier onto I-89 – and the willow limb dipping down right after Exit 9 still profiles like the north coast of Africa – and straight on in. Pitkinson has a pretty nice physical plant – the Waterman Building with the portico and the columns, the pathy East Campus lawns humming Gilded Age, Gilded Age – and the ensemble looked all tamped down and winter-sedate when I got onto Colchester Avenue.