Jubal Tiner

From “The Hunter”
(Jimmy Timberlake)

It was a bedroom. In the bed was the biggest man I had ever seen. He was white and pasty like glue, his huge head balding. I recognized that head. The volleyball. The man who tried to sick Spit on me that first afternoon. This was it, I thought—bloodwater and dog torture—it was all going to materialize right before my mother and my life would end abruptly.

"I hope you understand," said Mrs. Anderson. "I can't do it myself anymore. I'm getting too old and weak, and I just couldn't ask … any men, any of his buddies … it would just…

"Shame me," the man said quietly. "I guess Mabel here figures that would be more than I could take. Ashamed enough of myself, I guess she figures."

"Oh, Matt," said Mrs. Anderson.

"We're glad to help," my mother said. She looked around a little quizzically. “Just how do we go about that?"

Mr. Anderson motioned toward the closet. "Behind that door is a rope and a sling. Mabel will slip the sling under me, and Miss, if you or the boy will stand on that chair over there and loop the end of the rope through that pulley system attached to the ceiling, you all can ship me up to standing in a wink." He smiled at me when he said "the boy." I knew he wanted to be on his feet before he lowered the boom.

I stood on the chair while mom and Mabel arranged the sling—a contraption that looked like a backyard swing made out of rope and the faded inner tube of an ancient tractor tire—underneath Mr. Anderson, who smelled awfully of sweat and medicine. Once the complex system of pulleys had been successfully navigated, Mr. Anderson gripped his one end of the rope with puffy hands. We grabbed the other end and pulled.

I thought of it like levitation: Mr. Anderson magically floating from his bed and then dipping down to the floor, Mabel helping him land on his feet. I almost laughed, this large man standing, clothed in nothing but a pair of worn and faded boxers and a t-shirt stained yellow in patches across the chest and underarms.

"Thank you, Miss. Much obliged. I can take it from here.”

"Call me Sadie," said my mother. "This is Jimmy."

"Thanks for helping me, son." He grinned. "I've got a little something for you." Here it comes, I thought, but instead of a litany of charges, he gave me something I still have today, the strangest gift I've ever gotten. From a small drawer in a cabinet holding several shotguns and rifles, he produced a small object and placed it in my hand. "That's a silver bullet," he said. "Hard to find anymore. Guess most of the werewolves have gone into hidin’ these days, but, you've got it just in case." He winked. "Also works on other animals, like big dogs that have got your number.”

I thanked him, scared he would qualify his remark, but he didn’t. I felt I should say something; “I don't have a gun," was all I could come up with.

"Well, do you know how to shoot?"

I shook my head.

"We'll have to fix that. Quail season is coming up." He looked toward my mother. "How ’ bout I take the boy out when I'm feeling a little more fit … as repayment."

"No," began my mother. "But you can take us both out. I need a refresher course myself."

Mr. Anderson went a second sheet of white. "I…

"We'll look forward to it, won't we, Jimmy," my mother said, steering me through the doorway past Mrs. Anderson. “We’ll see you in the morning.”

~ ~ ~

Praise for The Waterhouse

In The Waterhouse, Jubal Tiner traces the intersecting fate of three boyhood friends as they navigate the world of masculinity and its discontents. These are stories bristling with a fierce wisdom, masterfully written, and emotionally fearless. Tiner is a writer to watch.

—Steve Almond, author of God Bless America and My Life in Heavy Metal

Names are important in The Waterhouse and so are the frequent nicknames that attach additional significance to their owners, but what is most crucial is the perception of each principle character, and that vital task is handled with distinction through Jubal Tiner’s command of multiple points of view. The characters are often frustrated and even more often afraid, yet they persist and even find a measure of redemption, able, as one of them says, as he lifts his young son toward the moon, to “pilot the capsule.”

—Gary Fincke, author of Sorry I Worried You, winner of the Flannery O’Connor Award

With its interrelated characters, The Waterhouse gives the reader both the pleasure of individual short stories as well as the wider arc of a novel. Tiner is a gifted writer, and he expertly plumbs the depths of his characters’ troubled souls.

—Ron Rash, author of Serena and The Cove