reviewed by Steve Mosby
In his introduction to this volume, Otto Penzler claims noir stories “are existential, pessimistic tales … The tone is generally bleak and nihilistic, with characters whose greed, lust, jealousy, and alienation lead them into a downward spiral as their plans and schemes inevitably go awry”. While exact definitions of the genre are often debated, it’s at least fair to say that Ed Gorman’s story, “Out There In The Darkness”, matches Penzler’s description very well indeed. In fact, its first line alludes to the events that will follow as “the whole strange spiral”. And as the tale progresses, the emphasis becomes very firmly on the strange.
At first, however, we’re presented with a recognisable domestic set-up: “four fortyish men who work in the financial business getting together for beer and bawdy jokes and straight poker”. Tonight, it’s Aaron, the narrator, hosting the game, joined by his friends Mike, Bob and Neil. Neil has been delayed due to being on patrol; following a series of burglaries and murders, the neighbourhood residents take turns driving around at night, keeping an eye out for trouble. Later that evening, the poker game is interrupted when one of the four men encounters an intruder in the kitchen. It’s this confrontation, and how the characters react to it, that sends their lives into a tailspin, as every attempt to salvage the situation only leads them deeper into trouble, morally and legally.
It’s a tale of escalation, then, as per Otto Penzler’s description – and it’s also a story of social conflict: of worlds colliding. The events that unfold play on a kind of middle-class fear of the lower orders, and also on the tension good people feel between actively ‘getting involved’ and the fear of doing so and what might happen. The four friends are of different races and religions, but all are obviously decent, ordinary, hard-working men, living in a “transitional neighbourhood” and concerned about the growing crime problem. When on patrol, they are meant to call the police rather than tackle anything themselves, but there is debate about whether they should be armed. You sense their frustration and anger, and understand why they might leap at the chance for direct action. But then … it’s easy to talk. In reality, the four men swiftly find themselves out of their depth, because, like most people, they are hopelessly unprepared for life in the wild.
In contrast, the criminals are entirely different. At first, that distinction is a familiar social one: the perpetrator of an earlier murder is “typical of the kind of man who’d infested this neighbourhood after sundown: a twentyish junkie stoned to the point of psychosis”. Later on, though, these criminals will be described as “vampires”, and take on almost supernatural powers as they exact retribution. Rather than a straightforward human threat, the four men are up against what amounts to an implacable force of nature. They have entered a world run on rules they don’t understand, and which it is now impossible to extricate themselves from. In the face of that, they’re all but powerless. The most telling moment comes when they plan to “buy off” their adversaries. It’s a desperate attempt to impose everyday logic onto this alien world, and its outcome undermines our expectations of the story while emphasising just how chaotic the men’s situation has become.
“Out There In The Darkness” is a long story, and a fine one. Despite the increasingly otherworldly events, Gorman lets it all unfold simply and believably. Especially good is the interplay between the leads, which, even with its occasional tensions, is convincingly natural and affectionate. “We were friends of convenience,” Aaron tells us, “but we all really did like one another”. You believe him, and so there is genuine emotional weight to what unfolds. The tale builds to a final note that is as pessimistic and bleak as Penzler promised. It isn’t so much a twist as a re-affirmation of the basic idea at the heart of the story: that the veneer of safety in our ordinary, everyday lives is always far more flimsy than we know.
Steve Mosby is the authors of Still Bleeding, Cry for Help, The 50/50 Killer, The Cutting Crew and The Third Person.
oooh. Sounds great!