In Tooth and Claw: A Novel

By Michael Luders

On the surface, Diana Hutchins has everything—fabulous wealth, trips abroad, an apartment in the glittering city—but despite these riches, she suffers a profound malaise. Confronted with the realization that an authentic life might mean renouncing everything she’s taken for granted, Diana leaves the caged city for a wide-open world where a feral presence haunts—and then begins to inform—her every action. Meditative and haunting, In Tooth and Claw mines deep into the human experience, asking if we live in a world today that no longer allows us to recognize our inner animal selves.

“It is said by some that storytelling is a lost art. So, when you encounter a storyteller of the first order, as is the case with Michael Luders, treasure the experience. And this novel is a true treasure, a tale told by a master in full command of his art.”

--Slaton White, deputy editor, Field & Stream

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Apr 5, 2018
• ISBN: 9781387695003

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In Tooth and Claw: A Novel

In Tooth and Claw

a novel by

Michael Luders

Lulu Press 2018

Copyright © 2018 by Michael Luders

ISBN: 978-1-387-69500-3

All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. 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.

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

Published by

Lulu Press, Inc.

627 Davis Drive, Suite 300

Morrisville, NC 27560

www.lulu.com

Cover art by Carol Luders, Birches in Vermont, 2017, acrylic.

Cover design by Shawn Orbanic

First Edition 2018

Dedication

For my parents and

my children.

And Jen,

who walked with me this path,

whether she wanted to

or not.

Epigraph

Who trusted God was love indeed

And love Creation’s final law—

Tho’ Nature, red in tooth and claw

With ravine, shriek’d against his creed—

—Alfred Lord Tennyson,

  In Memoriam A. H. H., 1850

I

1

Uptown, imperious buildings loom. Glass and steel titans, and closer, rows of townhouses. So many of them are under renovation, sheathed in scaffolding. It darkens those blocks. You cannot see their histories, their splendor. In the parks, mothers and strollers, the pigeons scattering in a sound like applause. At the window of her office, Diana looks across the river. The din of the streets bounces upward against the sides of the buildings, but she can’t hear it through the thickness of the glass. There is only the hum of air in the vents. She wonders, in an impetuous moment, what it would take to crash through. She has this thought from time to time, in moments of boredom. It’s only out of curiosity that she wonders. There is nothing sinister behind it. She watches her building’s reflection in the water, winking at her in the current. She wonders, too, if it is taunting her, mocking her daily incarceration.

Further downtown, Grand Central Station. Does a finer testament to the Beaux-Arts exist? Diana traveled from Connecticut for years before buying an apartment. She remembers the diesel trains, the lights of the homes along the tracks, the towns without distinction, one blurring into the next. In the main concourse, the constellations mapped on the great celestial expanse above. And the commuters. It was, to her, a procession, their movement like fish in a school, or a murmuration of starlings. The gateway to her glittering city, she remembers the brilliance breathed in the moment she arrived, the city’s pulse underfoot, its voices whispering in the cavernous rooms. Pledges of prosperity, of attainment, were loudly advertised. In Europe, cities bask in the narratives of kings and philosophers. In New York, you have the declarations of the industrious, of a city not so much guided by the past as pulled by what’s possible. It seemed then it would never wear off.

Outside her door, the woman who screens her calls, who schedules her days, waits for her. There is much to do, and Diana’s contemplations have her impatient. Like a student waiting for her scores, she taps her foot.

Beyond her office are the traders who work for her. They are scattered across the carpeted expanse of an entire floor, hundreds of monitors blinking under the cold, bleached cast of the lights. Their sentiments vary. To some, she is the embodiment of their professional hopes. Business abroad. Meetings with the city’s politicians and brokers. Galas, fundraisers, premiers. They envy her office, walled in glass, where they come to her. She is like a monarch, bestowing the firm’s largesse. They are the loyal, brilliant few who have turned long days into dollars.

There are other trappings. In winter, skiing at Aspen. Summers in Europe, in Italy or France, long days at the beaches that curve around their medieval towns, and evenings at restaurants with Michelin stars, the sun still warm on the skin, meals drawn straight from the sea, the wines. Cannes, Amalfi, Capri. And then home again, to a magnificent apartment. Only few have seen it, but everyone knows, it is filled with art and has views across the glittering city, the bridges, bejeweled, can be seen at night, and the Hudson. She lives with her husband. He is an artist. It is a good life, the life of hard work, of rich pleasures.

To her admirers, it has been earned. They long to be her. To her detractors, she is lucky. She is unfair, or duplicitous. To them, she is all this and they resign themselves to the understanding that this is how things are. So, they mutter their discontentment to each other and imagine a righted world where they, too, live like her, but that they have arrived honestly. She is aware of them, their envy. It darkens their days more than her own.

*

The rain comes quickly, unpredicted. It explodes on the windows of the buildings. It cascades down the steps of the subways. In front of a newsstand, she steps through streams, the water running amid the collapsing umbrellas and stamping feet. Then as suddenly as it came, the rain stops. The heat quickly dries the streets. They are steaming, a light mist like smoke. Concrete moors. The air is heavy, the light gray. There is the odor of garbage piled high at the curbs, black plastic bags of it. A bus pulls up, the air-blast gasp of brakes.

Diana looks downtown, at the smooth rivers of traffic. Somewhere, sirens. A policeman’s whistle. The asphalt is soft in the heat, it pulls at her heels. A scrum of children, emboldened by the authority of their school uniforms, teases a group of Asian tourists, recording them with imaginary cameras. Everywhere there is an imperativeness, in manner, in stride. There is an obliviousness too, of the day, of others. Though you are never alone in New York, the infinite worlds within are solitary. Everyone, she thinks, is elsewhere, pecking grimly at their phones, divining the news of things that had once been delivered more intimately.

She sees an empty cab. In it she passes a subway station, a throng climbing the steps. She remembers taking them, when she had to. The trains arriving at once, screaming on the tracks, the hot humid air, like a sirocco, blowing down the platforms. The cars packed. The vents broken. She was young still, the city’s charms beyond her ken. If this city is great, it can be known only from above. In the underworld, there is no hint of its grandeur, only the rats scurrying forth in the wake of leaving trains.

In Soho, the women fresh from their apartments, unbattered by the heat, stream forth. They are dressed for leisure, in long flimsy dresses. The men are in sandals, in linen, their shirts bearing foreign words. They’ve missed the rain. She wonders if they have anything to do. They are like a class you still see in Europe, always at play, at the beaches or the shops, at lunch. They kiss both cheeks in meeting and address one another as cheri or cara.

What was it again? the cabbie asks her.

Waverly and 6th.

Right.

Why are you taking this street?

She takes her clients to Minetta, or Balthazar. Tonight, it’s Babbo. They dine in back amid the clatter of dishes in a round booth that amplifies the clamor. She prefers these restaurants for business, her customers must lean in to be heard. It gives her a measure of control.

Why is it you never let us choose the restaurant? they ask.

Why do you think?

Because you’re difficult.

She smiles and proceeds to order the wine. Edge is everything with these people, she is thinking.

I would have chosen a Barolo.

Next time, she says.

Tonight, they’ve been drinking heavily and dinner hasn’t been ordered. Someone asks, Is it true that only smart people get sad? The question is tossed out like a wrapper from a passing car, without the expectation of an answer. It isn’t serious, nothing is here. And when the waiter comes to fill their glasses and take their order, it’s been forgotten.

Will you go to Vail again this Christmas? one of them asks.

The kids hated it last time, and you can’t have a proper wood-burning fire there.

That’s only in the newer houses, I think.

Have you seen those homes? No thanks.

We’re going to Jackson, a junior trader says. He is much younger than Diana, just out of college. He holds his glass up to the light, swirling it. This wine Diana … really?

It’s true that everything is relative, but no one at this table seems to worry. The conversation becomes a competition of boasts and too much cleverness. Diana is glad it’s drowned out finally by the rising tide of chatter at the other tables.

In the cab home, the city passes by. She sees the garish signs that mark the drinking neighborhoods, places where they had gathered after college—the drinks were inexpensive, they had been without money. It was the launching point of the next chapter of their lives. An ambulance pushes haltingly into the thorn of traffic, the light from the bubbles bouncing off the buildings. In its wake, a cannonade of horns. A group of young women, unpracticed in heels, crosses the street. For them the evening is just beginning. City nights devour the uninitiated. In the morning, for some, there will be lingering headaches and shame. There will be weepy postmortems. She’s been there.

Dinner left Diana anxious. She drank more than she wanted and it dampened her mood. The client was a bully at first, and then just pitiful. He is one of the firm’s best customers, but he was drunk early.

My wife has grown to loathe me.

He was holding his glass with both hands, as it if were holy wine.

Does that surprise you? she asked, her colleagues startled at her impertinence.

I fear I ruined her, he mumbled into his glass. Diana, you really shouldn’t talk to me like that. I’m the client, after all.

She waved over the waiter and asked for water for the table.

It’s why we love you, I suppose, he said.

By the end of the evening, he was reeling, his face wild, his attitude cruel. The other tables were appalled. She had to call a car, and with his juniors, have him escorted out.

The passing buildings are reflected in the glass of the cab, though she cannot see it from inside. Above, the moon shines improbably in a city that has forgotten its beauty. There is too much light here, she thinks, how can it compete? It draws her attention, like she imagines it must draw the tides. I am named for you, she thinks, not for the first time.

Good evening, Mrs. Hutchins. She has known the doorman years, rarely has he said anything more, but tonight he says, Are you okay?

Yes Ricardo, I’m just tired.

You’re working too hard, Mrs. Hutchins.

When she looks back, he is studying his newspaper.

In her apartment, she makes her way in the dark. Why can’t he leave a light on? In the kitchen, the counter, the stovetop, are a mess. Pots in the sink. The remnants of a hastily prepared dinner left for her to clean. He barely touched it. She throws it away and wipes everything clean before heading into the bedroom.

Light comes through the blinds drawn over the windows in audacious shafts. She walks softly to her dresser and removes her jewelry. The stones are iridescent as her hands pass through the light, an unwavering reminder that this is an accomplished life. She reaches behind for the zipper that allows her dress to fall to the floor. She stands before the mirror, naked in the shafting light, cupping her breasts, lifting them, considering them. They are too heavy, she thinks. Once this figure beguiled men. You are all woman, he would tell her, running his hands along her fullness.

In the bed, she can see him asleep, draped under a rumpled sheet. She considers removing her make-up but is too tired. She slips carefully into bed coiling tightly around herself. She will dream, for she always does, that her bed is a den deep in the woods and the trees are shaking madly overhead and the moon glints between the swimming clouds like a coin.

2

It was no longer the world Leo Castelli reigned over, though its artists were the spiritual descendants of those he had championed. The galleries occupied only a few blocks of the far western end of Chelsea. There would be others, elsewhere, on the Lower East Side and in Brooklyn, in the years to come, but now this was the epicenter of the contemporary art scene. Soho was dead, the artists pushed out by rising rents. Castelli was dead too, a solemn reminder that eras slipped one to the next with unsurprising certainty. In this world, Diana met Bo. He was a star at an improbable age, the Yale MFA showing at Ellen Pickford. It was known that Ellen shepherded only artists to whom fame was certain. And she poached from her competitors those whom had already arrived. It was not so much that she had an eye for greatness, but that she had a magisterial knack for promotion. If her painters didn’t always quicken the pulse of the critical establishment, they did make her a lot of money. Sometimes she had a painter who managed to do both. Bo Hutchins was one.

You’re not prolific, darling, or even great, but you will sell, she said, wooing him. That I can assure you. But, of course he was great. What followed was predictable in the way all parables are. Bo Hutchins was no longer the farm boy from Kansas, drawing Holsteins, or silos like silver phalli that rose from the dust of the heartland. He was a wanted man—editors and socialites, lesser artists, actors and musicians—they all wanted a piece of him. To his credit, he never fell for it. The kisses, barely pressed to his cheeks, the smiles stretched falsely, the servile praise. It was coarse to him, all of it. He reminded himself that he was truly an artist, a good one, a great one, and that this was how it was done. He loathed Ellen Pickford, but he needed her, just as he needed the flatterers, the jesters, the collectors.

Diana would see him out often when they were both still young. It was always late, he surrounded by people who didn’t need to get up in the morning, dressed in his tattered jeans and under his nails paint, like mud. They were children of wealth, flitting through their twenties drawn to the revelry, and he, the self-appointed offspring of Shelley and Rimbaud. She was always with her girlfriends. They were new to the city and together they explored it. Greater freedoms had not been imagined. Diana had gone to a small college, it didn’t prepare her for this. She would call her father to tell him of new discoveries, a play or some exhibit that had excited her. She met young men with promise, with the drive to invent things, to surpass their own fathers. She liked them and though the romances would fade, she remained close to them all. It was her young girlfriends with whom she went out late into the nights. Together they would drink too much and compare their days, aspiring to meet men who could sustain in them more than passing interest.

She never approached Bo, even though they had mutual friends, and he never went over to her. He would tell her later that he had wanted to, that the people who clung to him did so suffocatingly, and that he could not leave them. Years later, when she no longer believed in him, she would know it was because he had lacked the courage to do so.

In the heat of a late summer, when she was still in her twenties, she found herself walking in Chelsea. The streets were empty and the low buildings did little to shade them. Men wore their shirts wrapped round their waists soaking up the sweat that ran like rain down their backs—it seemed it was all men in those days. She pretended she was there by chance, and she told herself that when she found herself opening the gallery door.

We’re not open today. The girl behind the desk was barely out of graduate school. She was filled, perhaps, with the nerve that comes with a degree, her brow arched impatiently. We’re preparing for an opening.

I know. Can I just peek inside?

The walls were stark white, the sour smell of paint in the air. The lighting was harsh and sterile. It was as if she had stepped into an operating theater. Several paintings were leaning against the walls, placed around the rooms with obvious intent. Eventually they would be hung, but first they would be moved, and moved again, the artist never satisfied, the hangers increasingly irritated.

I’m afraid you can’t.

It’s alright. The voice came from a corner she could not see, booming in the