The Dominant Hand

By Charles Martin

An end-of-the-world cult forms around a charismatic, troubled rock musician who leads his followers deep into the woods east of Norman, Oklahoma. A mysterious series of events leaves 250 people dead and 4,238 people missing with no official explanation emerging from months of investigation.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Literati Press
• Release date: Jul 19, 2010
• ISBN: 9780615200088

Charles Martin

Charles Martin is a New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author. He and his wife, Christy, live in Jacksonville, Florida. Learn more at charlesmartinbooks.com; Instagram: @storiedcareer; Twitter: @storiedcareer; Facebook: @Author.Charles.Martin.

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Willy Wonka

Taken from my answering machine, the call had been placed at 3:20 a.m. Eastern:

Will, Will? Pick up, Will. It’s Jim and I’ve got to talk to you so pick up. (Silence) Goddammit, Will! Okay, fine, but erase this as soon as you hear it. I just got back this morning, and I lost. They are coming, and they are coming soon. I’ve got to talk to you. Have you warned the world yet? Come see me as soon as you can, okay? I’m not sure where I’ll be, I don’t know who’s around anymore. (Silence) I’m not even sure what month it is.

Is this about the ogres, again?

I chuckled while surveying the faces around me to ensure no one was listening and sipped on my coffee. Dave’s question wasn’t unexpected, but it still sent my heart into a series of hard, stammering beats. Dave Fairview was the editor of a mid-level music magazine, Timbre. He smiled like a man who always thought you were lying to him, and he enjoyed it.

Dave leaned back in a cheap plastic chair, looked over his ridiculously thick, black-rimmed glasses while taking a sip from his Darth Vader coffee mug. The smile faded as snickering women passed by our table. He scratched his unkempt stubble, yawned and then gave me that smile again.

It’s not really about the ogres, I whispered, scanning the buzzing break room filled with chattering staffers.

Dave nodded like a bobblehead, then took another sip. Staffers converged on a receptionist as she emerged with a box of doughnuts, and I was relieved that everyone was groping in the box for their sugar fix instead of staring at the red tinge of humiliation glowing on my forehead. I ran my hand along my brow, collecting the moisture beading to the surface, and was reminded of the tragic status of my ever-receding hairline. My scalp had once sprouted a brilliant mop of bright red curls that were embarrassing and inevitable, given my mother’s irrational attachment to the Ronald McDonald ‘fro. The blooming red had withered and retreated from my head down to my pasty, freckle-filled back and I’d grimly considered my mother’s long-standing offer of Rogaine.

A quick glance back up to Dave’s steady gaze showed he wasn’t going to respond to me. Instead, he studied me like a poker shark, reading my hand and making his play.

Don’t tip your hand, Will. Don’t you fucking tip your hand.

I’m serious, Dave, I relented. I just want to revisit the whole episode, but not the stupid rumors and the ridiculous mythology.

No, Will, no, Dave sighed. Any conversation that even remotely contains ogres, leprechauns, fairies or mermaids cannot be about anything else. If I told you I went to Dunkin Donuts this morning, and oh, by the way, a one-eyed giant was panhandling outside, what would that conversation be about? Not the doughnuts.

My hand twitched nervously, partly from an overabundance of caffeine, but mostly because I’ve always been a jittery person. I was the kid who pissed his pants while stuck on a question at the chalkboard.

Yeah, that’s me. Always cool as ice.

So, you want to do another article about Jim Jacobs? Dave ventured. You’re five years and a thousand miles from Norman and its invasion of Jim’s mystical creatures. Maybe it’s time to move on with your life, Will.

Across the room, two bird-faced women with cat eye glasses and stern pony tails giggled and snarked quietly to each other. They wrote fashion and food, were as cliquish as a witches’ coven and tried not to be bothered that no one liked to sit at their table or wanted to hear about their overly pampered lapdogs. I’d feel better about my self-righteous disdain for the two had I not attempted, unsuccessfully, to court both of them.

I assumed the two women caught the gist of our conversation and, like the rest of the country, they knew Jim’s ogres. They grinned, whispered and took turns pointing their beady eyes back in our direction. It made the same nervous acid rise in my stomach as when they parried my romantic advances and then showed up at the very show I’d invited them to with other men.

Humiliation isn’t new to me. I’ve been defending Jim for years and was nearly ostracized for it. Before the ogres, Jim was a musical genius, the kind that yuppies pretended to like and hipsters pretended to only like his early stuff. The sons and daughters of Middle America could use Jim as a password, and those who knew the password could show that they were in on something the rest of the world was too uncivilized to understand. Rolling Stone and MTV would mention him briefly, maybe review an album, but fans knew in their hearts that the mainstream didn’t get Jim, just as the mainstream didn’t get them.

Then came sound tracks for movies, appearances on talk shows. Then came the Grammy. Everything started crumbling just when it looked like Plaid finally crossed over.

After Jim started seeing his ogres, he became the guy that began that crazy cult in Norman, Oklahoma. I was the reporter who believed in him, and it had nearly destroyed my career.

Nearly. And there I was, finishing the job.

Okay, Willie, Dave smirked, leaning in. Pitch me your story.

I glanced back at the women, but they were now eyeing the magazine’s resident gamer, chirping over the three sprinkled doughnuts he hoarded.

I’ve never really told the whole story about that situation, I began slowly.

It’s been done, Will. Over and over and over again. This is not a subject that needs to be rehashed. Unless you honestly have something else to offer, something new. I’ve heard they’ve got that concert going on where they’re planning on the resurrection of Mr. Jacobs. I’d heard that his crazy cult nearly beat some guy to death in the woods.

Even Dave calls them a crazy cult.

Honestly, Will, is this really something you want to take on? Other writers would be fine, but I figured you’d want to put a little distance between yourself and Mr. Jacobs.

I took a sip of coffee and swished it around my mouth to let it cool. I gulped it down and leaned farther in.

I was there, I said softly. From beginning to end. There are things about it that never got out. Things about Jim, things that I saw.

The break room’s white noise dropped, leaving only the sounds of the sputtering coffeemaker, the clicking of the gamer’s chewing jaw and the last few words of my confession. Dave looked around as other staffers dropped their eyes and pretended to be distracted by their doughnuts and magazines.

Let’s go to my office, Dave grumbled, standing up and waving me to follow.

I tossed my unfinished cup of coffee in the trash as I walked through the break room, ignoring curious eyes. Dave looked into the box of doughnuts and swatted people’s hands away as he reached for a jelly-filled.

Once we left the break room, the voices resurfaced and I knew my name would be in every hushed exchange of gossip for the rest of the day. The acidic anxiety rumbled in my belly again, but I knew I couldn’t let humiliation stop me. It wasn’t another obscure band that no one had heard of; it wasn’t a reissue of B-sides that only a handful of ultra fans cared about. This was the story about Jim I should have written five years ago.

Just don’t tip your hand, Will.

Dave’s office door was littered with glossy photos from press kits and backstage passes, looking like a steamer trunk pasted with all the stickers of interesting places the owner traveled. Some people work to earn money to buy interesting things; music writers accept underpaying jobs to be reimbursed in swag. We can’t afford T-shirts, so we only wear what comes in press kits. If the band makes it big, we stow the swag away for a couple years and bring it back out when it’s hip again. If we don’t like the band, then we just wear it ironically.

I really identify with Dave. Like most music journalists, he’s too working class to be a proper scenester and not counter culture enough to be a proper musician. So, to support the scene he couldn’t afford, he wrote about it. Unlike me, he came down with a severe case of fatherhood and shifted from freelance writing into the unenviable role of editor. He jokes that every time he has to break in a new writer, it costs him ten strands of hair. Apparently he’d gone through a lot of writers, but I gotta think part of his hair loss was due to kids.

Truthfully, I’d like to be a dad one day, but I don’t do well with women on a romantic level. It’s hard for me to respect a woman who is attracted to my squat, pale and hairy body. I’m working on it, though. Watching what I eat, I’m shaving regularly, playing hockey with friends and slowly making my way up to higher tax brackets.

Dave slouched down in his chair and rattled his mouse to jolt the computer awake. On his desk, there was a picture with Dave and his musical hero, Morrissey, half-hugging. Next to it was a slightly smaller portrait of his wife and children, inexplicably looking slightly up and to the right. I got the vibe from Dave’s wife that she wasn’t comfortable with Dave’s intense affinity to Morrissey, which made me smile every time I saw the two pictures next to each other.

Close the door, please, Dave sighed, while attending to his e-mail.

I nudged the door closed with my foot and slunk down into his chair.

Okay, shoot, Daddy-o. Why should we rehash Jim Jacobs?

I knew Jim personally, he was a friend of mine, I said. When the whole thing got crazy toward the end, there were things that he showed me that he never showed anyone else. He told me to tell the world, but …

But other people have, Dave interrupted. For a year after that whole thing climaxed, I couldn’t open a magazine without another musician or artist waxing poetic on the greater meaning of the pseudo-cult that formed around that guy. What did he show you? The monsters?

I dropped my eyes, leaned back in the chair and shook my head.

Too bad, he mumbled. So, what new slant can you bring to it? Do you know if he’s actually still alive and will show up to this concert? I could make room for an interview.

I began to answer, but caught myself. I tried to maintain my poker face, but it was too late. Dave saw the thought wrinkle my freckly brow.

You have seen him, Dave said, turning from his computer and leaning forward on his desk. I had my story, but not how I wanted it. So, he’s alive, huh? Where’s he at?

In Norman, and I haven’t seen him yet, but I got a phone call from him last night.

Where the hell has he been all these years?

My fingers picked at a small hole in the fake leather cushion of the chair. I kept my eyes lowered to the stretched-out and distorted image of myself reflected off the back of the Darth Vader mug.

Well, if you believe him, I grunted, he’s been fighting back the ogre army.

Fucking Will, you tipped your hand.

Dave let loose a sharp, nasal laugh followed by a snort. His laugh got me smiling, despite giving up the one thing I had wanted to hide from Dave. Jim might not talk to me; especially once he found out I had never told the world what I knew.

Dave removed his glasses and rubbed his eye while the laugh settled into a cricket-like chirp.

You know, he sighed, it’s funny that you bring this up. I got an e-mail from someone who said he knew a guy that almost got killed in the woods. He’s in a coma in a hospital, in Dallas I think.

He leaned over his keyboard and started typing.

He said there was a video I needed to see, he continued, while he wiggled his mouse around. Sent me the link. Ah, here it is.

He swiveled his flat computer screen around to face me. There was a grainy video playing with a thin, dark-haired girl talking to the camera.

Let me get the sound, Dave mumbled. He said this girl was involved.

… it’s all for you, Jim! her voice erupted from the speakers. I’d do anything for you, Jim, just come back to us. You want me to give up something?

She held up her hand as she cooed into the camera.

I’ll do it! I’ll do fucking anything you want! she said. Anything you want, if you ask me.

The sound cut back off again. It made me nauseous, but I wasn’t surprised. I didn’t recognize the face right away, but I knew the voice. That low, maple syrup twang. Confident, boyish and imbalanced. Her name was Misty. She’d grown into a young woman since I’d last seen her. She was twelve when she started following Shropshire Plaid to every show they played. If she couldn’t sneak into the over–twenty-one shows, she’d sit out back with other overzealous fans and wait for the band to emerge.

If I’d guessed which of Jim’s fans would go over the edge, Misty would be among the most likely candidates. I didn’t think she would beat someone to death, though.

Do you know who the girl is? Dave asked, and I shook my head, lying. Well, she’s talking about your Jim.

I glanced back at the screen as she ran the fingers of her right hand around the left wrist. She was always awkward when she was trying to be sexy. I could feel Dave’s studious eyes on me.

Supposedly there are videos of some kind of sacrifice, Dave said. Really gross, apparently. I couldn’t find it, though. Have you heard anything about that?

Those people say a lot of crazy things, I sighed. It’s all just rumors.

Think you can find her?

This isn’t about what the cult’s become, I said flatly. I want to tell my side of the story.

Dave straightened, put his glasses back on and looked at me.

Find out if there are groupies in the woods doing cult-style sacrifices, Dave said, tapping on the screen. Try to track down the girl and Jim Jacobs. You do that, you can also tell your side of the story. In fact …

Dave turned the screen back away from him, looked over the girl and then back at me.

You get me Jim before anyone else, Dave said. You get me Jim and the blood and gore, I’ll give you the cover story.

Okay, I mumbled.

Huh?

Okay!

Dave grinned and then pecked at his keyboard.

You might see if there really is something to this concert, the Shropshire Plaid reunion? What do you think your chances are of getting an exclusive with Jim?

As far as I know, no one else in the media knows Jim’s around and might actually show up, I said. He doesn’t trust anyone in the media.

Dave’s eyebrows lifted. A smile spread across his face.

He trusts you though, doesn’t he? Dave asked, but I didn’t answer. Where is he, exactly?

Don’t do it, Will.

Will, Dave sang slowly. Where is he?

Homeless, wandering the streets of Norman and Oklahoma City.

I’m so spineless.

Dave arched his back, gave a wolf-like smile that made it look like he had an erection.

How soon can you have it to me?

2

Into the Woods

Shropshire Plaid front man Jim Jacobs wanders the Oklahoma countryside in search of women, wonder and the end of the world.

By Will Weinke

Jim Jacobs could be dead right now.

Two hours after we were scheduled to discuss Shropshire Plaid’s new album, A Reckoning, You Reckon, Jacobs’s voice finally emerged over the phone line. He was buoyantly chipper, even as he begged for a ride. He’d gotten stranded far east of Norman, Oklahoma, and said I should be the one to fetch him since it would make for a better interview.

It was a week after publicly hawking his Grammy Award for Best New Artist at a local pawn shop and three weeks after leading a minor riot at a show at The Viper Room in Los Angeles. Plaid lead guitarist Chris Nguyen even let slip in a radio interview that Jacobs’s antics might overshadow the entire band.

Despite the distractions, the album was grabbing stellar reviews from critics and peer musicians alike, even picking up an unlikely endorsement from Jacobs’s idol, David Bowie. The album is a grab bag of sounds, styles and quirky genre-bending glam-meets-art rock ballads to a world tumbling toward its ultimate demise. The title track is the bounciest pop song of the band’s career, all while cataloging a laundry list of impending global calamities. The other songs are erratic and thrown together, seemingly at random. As the album progresses, form and method start to emerge in the chaos and is capped off with the final track, Into the Woods. It’s a riddle of a song, with references to the Pied Piper and to Moses, hinting that Jacobs isn’t sure if his own messianic complex will lead his followers to riches or ruin.

Nguyen’s soaring guitar solos, drowned in feedback, follow faithfully behind Jacobs’s piercing falsetto playfully speak-singing like a character in a crazed radio drama from the ‘40s. They then settle into unabashedly naïve and sappy love songs to Jacobs’s longtime flame, Ashley Jones, with whom he’s shared an increasing amount of public meltdowns. The album may be a tangled mess, but like Jacobs himself, it’s a beautiful mess.

I reached Jacobs on a remote country road and noticed the tall red, white and blue liberty spikes of his brand new mohawk. Anyone who has seen Plaid live knows that Jacobs loves showmanship, with ridiculous dime store costumes, awkwardly acted skits by roadies and a forest of pawn shop Christmas lighting. Because of Jacobs’ shorter than average stature, his new towering mohawk made him look like a diminutive warrior from a tribe of pale-skinned pygmies.

"We need to go back to my car, Jacobs announced as he slid into the passenger seat, taking great care not to mess his mohawk. He smelled vaguely like a festival port-a-potty. I have my bag in the trunk. I gotta get it before the tow truck comes."

We backtracked for five miles down gravel roads, passing farmhouses, hibernating oil rigs and dozens of churches. Then we came upon his black Lexus hanging precariously over the edge of a bridge, the gray railing peeled back like wood shavings.

"Jesus, Jim."

"Yeah, I know, Jacobs laughed. I could’ve died, right? How funny would that be?"

I took off my headphones, looked away from the laptop screen and rubbed my eyes. I was combing through the story I’d written on Jim five years ago. It was never printed. The editor I had at the time, a smarmy kid just out of college, had laughed at it. He thought it was a hackneyed, self-obsessed attempt at gonzo journalism and told me to rewrite it and cut out anything I couldn’t verify. I did and Jim stopped answering my phone calls, calling me a sellout to our mutual friends.

Then Jim disappeared.

Every time my attention wandered, I was tempted to track down the video with Misty and her sacrifice. I didn’t think it existed though, and if it did, it would be a lame sacrifice, like when Christians give up carbonated beverages for Lent.

There were always so many crazy rumors surrounding Jim. The sacrifice rumors are nothing new, either. They’ve been floating around for a while. People getting high, cutting themselves, babbling about crazy shit they thought they were seeing in the forest.

I sighed, rolled my neck around and stole a side glance at the shapely blonde who was waiting to board our plane.

Is it weird that I can shift from pity to prurient so quickly?

I was fortunate enough to catch her bending over to dig through her purse. She had one of those asses that looked impossibly round and firm. It’s like seeing a stealth fighter as a kid—it’s not really real until you can touch it and see what it feels like. Muscle? Fat? Maybe like the rubber bladder inside a basketball?

I’d gotten to the gate an hour early, telling myself that I was going to get a good start on the story. Instead, I’m going to spend the rest of my time praying that the blonde sits next to me on the plane so I can want to talk to her, but never actually say anything to her. We will then leave the plane and go about the rest of our lives, and I’ll hate myself for not trying.

Hey, who knows, maybe she’ll need to borrow my headphones and I’ll get to say sure, and softly touch her index finger when I hand them to her. I could always write the story at the hotel.

Stretch! a voice broke in. Stop staring at girls, ya pervert.

Charles Martin stood in front of me, and the busty blonde grinned knowingly.

For a few seconds, I wondered whether if I just ignored him, if he’d go away. Not Charles, though; he can’t be ignored and that’s probably why he works at Spin.

Fucking asshole.

So, how goes it, Stretch? Charles asked. He called me Stretch because I am short and he is a tall yuppy with a shaved head. Sort of reminded me of a well-dressed penis with eyebrows

Fucking asshole.

I lowered the screen of my laptop and nodded. We’d both worked at the Oklahoma Gazette years ago. When Jim began preaching about the ogres, Norman became a weird cultural hub of the country. Charles was one of the many who profited heavily off the national attention during and after Jim’s cult. He wasn’t Jim’s friend. He had no loyalty, taking the first book deal right out of town.

And yes, it does annoy me that he got a book deal, and that he then got a second book deal for a crappy novel about God knows what. But what really annoyed me was that he insisted he was my friend, and then sometimes I believed him just to be quickly reminded that he is no friend of mine.

Nice laptop, Stretch, Charles smirked with that stupid toothy smile on his penis face. I folded the laptop closed.

Thanks, I grumbled. Where are you flying to?

Oklahoma City, just like you.

Going to see family? I ventured, but guessed he’d heard about Jim.

I’ll go with that, he shrugged, sitting down next to me. I sighed and then put my laptop away, knowing I wasn’t going to get any work done now, nor would I be able to eyeball the blonde.

Are you following me, Charles?

He laughed. He wasn’t going to lie to me about it. He had this weird thing with telling the truth. It wasn’t that he had integrity, but just that he liked pissing people off and telling the truth indiscriminately often did that.

Are the wife and kids coming? I asked.

Naw, they are staying home for now. Depends on how long I’m down there though. Labor Day is coming up so they might come down then if I’m still in Oklahoma so we can see the grandparents.

I knew I would eventually have to lose Charles if I was going to get Jim to talk to me. There was no sense trying now, since we were getting on the same plane. I could attempt to ignore him, though, so I stood up and grabbed my bag.

Where you off to? Charles asked, picking up his bag so he could follow.

To buy a book for the plane, I mumbled, walking away.

Oh, you know what? he said, trailing after me. I’ve actually got a copy of my new book, just came out. You can have it.

Spectacular.

*******

Rumors of Jacobs’s ravenous appetite for mind-altering substances were making the rounds in the blogs, and as Nguyen had predicted, stealing ink away from the new album. I’d hoped they weren’t true, or at least that they were exaggerated. After just a few minutes of talking, I could tell he was no longer the man I’d once known, Norman’s boy genius of rock.

I’d met him while he was still hopping from band to band, booking gigs at any venue that’d give him stage time, opening for any band that would have him.

Back then, he was a quiet kid with a boyish smile and boundless optimism. He always remembered names, he remembered what you did and what you cared about. He didn’t have fans, he had friends. He also had Ashley, his gorgeous wife who urged him on in his quest to