#theinterviewbydavy

Late on a spring morning I stand over the body of acclaimed author Robert Barclay in the kitchen of his ranch style home in southern Virginia. I couldn't tell you how long I’ve been doing this — only that the sun has climbed higher and the shadows have been stretched long across the linoleum floor. His little dog has come by to sniff at him a few times, but mostly stands near its food dish whining at me.

I’m late again.

I'm late to most everything. I was meant to arrive at eight o'clock sharp, for starters, but didn't pull into the driveway until twenty after. When he didn’t come to the door, I figured he must have taken offense.

Judging by the bruises pooling in his skin, though, I would’ve needed to be pretty early to catch him alive.

But I'm weeks late. I was supposed to schedule this appointment last month so his article would appear in the June issue of The Hammond. It's his birthday month, and he's just turned ninety.

I've never seen a dead body before.

I never have, but I know beyond the shadow of a doubt that he’s dead. I am too late, and the assigning editor of the lit magazine I'm working for is never going to give me another job.

It's not that I want to write for The Hammond; no one cares about literary mags. It's this misguided ambition that made me put this interview off in the first place; I wanted to grab an one with an up and coming blues rock musician while we were in the same state instead. It didn't pan out, and here I am standing in the kitchen with the corpse of R. Barclay.

And, given the propensity things have not to pan out for me, The Hammond is the best I'm going to do. I can hear Jason, the editor, now: I stick my neck out for you, Franky. I extend deadlines for you, and it bites me in the ass. Everything always bites me in the ass with you.

He already advertised the interview, too — that's the thing. R. Barclay is a big name, always relevant in The Hammond’s unbearably dull world. This is an interview folks were looking forward to, and Jason made it out like it already took place. But I was late.

And now what the fuck do I do, Franky? 'Well, folks, bad news: Old Barclay kicked it before our no account journalist got his shit together.’

I might as well put down my recorder and find an office job, or go work in a factory somewhere. At this rate, I'm never going to get this career off the ground.

I realize I need to call somebody.

PART ONE PART TWO

I unlock his front door and step out onto the porch. His lawn is wide and flat with the Bermuda grass shorn close to the soil. In the midmorning sun his driveway is searingly white, and my eyes burn like I've just emerged from a crypt into the dawn of life.

It’s situated on a nondescript length of highway. I figure it's got a name the locals know, but the map unfolded on my passenger seat just calls it US HWY 29. His driveway cuts a straight path from the two-lane highway, and simply sits in this giant barren yard with no rhyme or reason guiding its placement. Just a plain brick monolith smack dab in the Virginia countryside. The closest building in sight is an ancient barn at the end of the road, which is halfway through the process of being smothered under a blanket of kudzu.

The Amigo's doors are unlocked, so I help myself to my benzos and a cigarette. I empty the ashy dredges of yesterday’s coffee onto R. Barclay's lawn.

Standing there smoking, I can't help but imagine how things might have played out if I got here in time to talk to the guy; R. Barclay's final interview. Maybe he would have said something really great; revealed a manuscript on the cusp of being publishable. I could've been the last person to ever speak to him. My name could've come attached to the news articles — R. Barclay found dead in his Virginia home hours after talking with journalist Franky Wilcox.

Well, it's a working headline. That one paints me as a suspect.

I think about how, right now, I'm the only person who knows he's dead. I read something about how he never married, never had kids. I wonder who the next of kin is; who's going to be uprooted from their life once I call this in to come and rummage through his things. Maybe they'll find the unfinished work and publish it. The daydream shifts to me being the one, of course. To stealing it and publishing it as if I were the writer.

Now that'd make a good story — but what I end up deciding on R. Barclay's lawn that June morning is that I'll pretend the interview did happen.

The only problem is I don't know this man. I didn't get to speak to him beyond a short conversation over the phone.

Hi, Mr. Barclay. My name is Franky Wilcox, and I've been asked to do an interview for The Hammond. Are you familiar with The Hammond, Mr. Barclay?

Oh, hello. Yes. Hello, yes.

I heard it was your birthday this month.

Oh, yes. I’m ninety years old.

Well, happy birthday, Mr. Barclay. Would you be available to do an interview with me? For The Hammond.

An interview… When? I've got a doctor's appointment this Monday.

When's good for you, Mr. Barclay?

Early, I guess. My mind's better in the mornings.

Sure; how early?

Well, I get up around five-thirty and let my little dog out.

Uh-huh. There was no way in hell I was driving out to Bumfuck, Virginia at five in the morning. How does eight sound? Maybe on Tuesday?

Eight o'clock on Tuesday. I imagine he was looking at his calendar when he said, Yes, alright.

I drop my cigarette on his white driveway and snuff it under my shoe, then return to the house. It's more harrowing to step inside this time around, and I prop the storm door open. Raisin bursts out at once, and I turn to watch as the dog — a he, evidently — raises a leg on the bushes. He promptly shits next to them. Must have been holding it for a long time.

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PART ONE

Gingerly stepping over Robert Barclay's stiffening corpse, I cross the kitchen to pick up the phone hanging on the wall. The dial tone buzzes, filling my ear like the droning of flies. Bile gurgles into my throat, and I hang up so I can swallow it back down.

I sink to my haunches, dropping my notebook and recorder. My fingers claw through my hair and I curl into myself. My mantra goes, "Oh, God. Jesus. Fuck."

A deep groan answers from behind me.

My heart launches into my mouth and I pirouette out of my crouch. I only manage to twist and land on my ass, then crab-walk a few paces from Robert Barclay’s corpse. This is the first good look I’ve gotten at his face. He looks like one of those wax figures in a museum, but on a day when the AC’s busted. His eyes stand wide open and his mouth is agape, resin teeth slanted like they're ready to drop out. One hand is stretched out toward me and the other is curled into his chest.

"Rob? Rob, are you…" Still in there?

It's gas escaping. Some crime scene investigator I talked to a couple years back mentioned this happened when we were gearing up for the interview. It always stuck with me, popping into my conscience intermittently. Death is embarrassing. It's always embarrassed me. I don't know why.

His body gives a little squeak and I gag.

I guess someday this is gonna be me. Maybe someday soon. This is why my momma calls all the time. She thinks I'm gonna overdose, and some jackass is gonna walk in on me stiff on a floor somewhere.

R. Barclay's sounds have attracted his little terrier, and it's sniffing around his face. I summon it away with a click of my tongue and put my hand out. It scurries over with its nubby tail going fast and licks at my fingers, and I scrub its saliva over the crown of its head before picking myself up off the floor.

Robert Barclay is one of those writers who’ll remain a household name. They already make you read one of his books when you're in high school. He's a 'great American' author, and I'll be the forgotten asshole who missed the chance to do his last interview.

If I just got here yesterday, I think. Or did he kick it yesterday?

I look at his little dog, and it sort of looks back at me with its beady eyes that skew in opposite directions.

"Where's your food at, baby?" I ask, and it turns in a tight circle. "Ready to eat? You want breakfast?"

More circles.

I start going through cabinets, but I'm met with leaning towers of pots and pans and plastic containers in each one. He can't have used any of this shit in years. Poor old guy's probably been living on crackers and buffet cafeterias. He never had kids. Never married.

Up until now, he'd been driving himself — I saw his Buick out front where I parked my Amigo. It was like any other geezer's car: beat up around the bumper. Grey, enormous.

The little dog tires of my searching and tap-dances over to a plastic bin near the sliding door where Robert Barclay has his breakfast nook. There's hard bread crumbs on the glass-top table, a few little ants scurrying up and down the wall.

I scoop some kibble out of the bin and deposit it in the dog's food bowl. It lets me check the tag on its collar while it's scarfing the little cardboard flavored nuggets down. Raisin. The name is familiar, I realize; the little author biography blurb I read when I took the job mentioned something about R. Barclay living alone with his dog, Raisin.

While Raisin crunches kibbles, I stand and lean against the counter.

"I was gonna ask if you were working on anything," I tell Rob's body. "And if you ever thought your books were gonna be required reading for schoolkids."

Raisin dislodges a kibble with a wet sounding cough.

"I was gonna ask who you like reading these days."

I scrub my hand over my forehead, rake my fingers through my hair. My hand drops and I stare down at him. "Who do you like reading these days, Rob?"

A clock above the sink ticks as I stand over him. I haven't done much else since breaking in apart from feeding his dog. When he didn't come to the door, I'd stepped down off the concrete slab of his porch to shield my eyes and peer through his living room window, and I could see his silhouette on the kitchen floor from the front of the house. His place is situated out in the countryside, not a neighbor in sight. He doesn't lock his windows, so I let myself in so I could use his phone to call the ambulance.

But there's no hurry. It's not like I want to spend more time than I have to with this unexpectedly stiff and cold version of Robert Barclay, but there's a little part of me that's irrationally concerned I'll be blamed for his death. I have to talk myself down from that ledge: you had an appointment. He's been dead for hours, at least. What motive could you have possibly had? I guess I'm already anxious about what Jason's gonna say; it makes everything feel like one grand conspiracy to ruin me.

I've got some pills in my Isuzu Amigo parked outside. Standing there with my hip leaned against R. Barclay's kitchen counter, I think I better go pop one or four. I'll seem more collected, less suspicious, when the cops get here.

…Will they send cops?