Evan and I grew up together in Rutland. We did baseball and wrestling together. He was a real natural leader and always kept the teams spirits up. Knew he’d had his struggles in the past, but thought he was doing really well. So sorry to hear about what happened.

Took classes with Evan at RCC. Such a cool dude. Can’t believe this. RIP man.

I grew up in the same town as Evan’s family. These poor people had the worst luck.

I remember Evan when he played baseball for West Rutland. Never knew him personally but a great first baseman. Really sorry he had such demons.

Bye Evan, I’ll miss you. RIP.

Met Evan in our MFA program up in Ripley. Super talented writer, great guy. Shocked that this happened to him.

Please accept my condolences for your loss, all family and friends of the deceased. May his memory be a blessing.

But there seemed not to be any close friends, and no reference to any spouse or significant other. What could Jake learn from this that he hadn’t already known?

That Evan Parker had played sports in high school. That he’d had “struggles” and “demons”—perhaps they were the same?—at least at one point and then, apparently, again. That something suggestive of “worst luck” attached to him and his family. That at least one Ripley student remembered Evan from the program. How well had this student known him? Well enough to have been told the same extraordinary plot Evan had told Jake? Well enough to now be concerning himself with the “theft” of his classmate’s unwritten novel?

The Ripley student who’d left the tribute had signed his first name only: Martin. That wasn’t particularly helpful as far as Jake’s memory went, but fortunately the 2013 Ripley MFA student roster was still on his computer, and he opened up the old spreadsheet. Ruth Steuben had likely never read a story or a poem in her life, but she’d been a great believer in orderly record keeping, and alongside each student’s address, phone number, and email address a column had been given over to their genre of concentration: either an F for fiction or a P for poetry.

The only Martin was a Martin Purcell of South Burlington, Vermont, and he had an F next to his name. Even after looking up Purcell’s Facebook profile and seeing multiple shots of his smiling face, however, Jake didn’t recognize the guy, which might have meant he’d been assigned to one of the other fiction writers on the faculty, but it might also mean he’d simply been unmemorable, perhaps even to a teacher genuinely interested in knowing his students (which had never been Jake, as he’d recognized about himself even then). Apart from Evan Parker, the only people he remembered from that particular group were the guy who’d wanted to correct Victor Hugo’s “mistakes” in a new version of Les Misérables and the woman who’d conjured the indelible non-word “honeymelons.” The rest, like the faces and names of fiction writers from his third teaching year, and his second, and his first, were gone.

He commenced a deep dive on Martin Purcell, during which he paused only to order and eat some chicken from RedFarm and exchange at least twenty text messages with Anna (mainly about Randy Johnson’s latest antics and a weekend trip she was planning to Port Townsend), and he learned that the guy was a high school teacher who brewed his own beer, supported the Red Sox, and had a pronounced interest in the classic California group, the Eagles. Purcell taught history and was married to a woman named Susie who seemed to be very engaged in local politics. He was a ridiculous over-sharer on Facebook, mostly about his beagle, Josephine, and his kids, but he posted nothing at all about any writing he might currently be doing, and he mentioned no writer friends nor any writers he was reading or had admired in the past. In fact, if it weren’t for the Ripley College reference in his educational background you’d never know from Facebook that Martin Purcell even read fiction, let alone aspired to write it.

Purcell had a heart-sinking 438 Facebook friends. Who among them might be people he’d crossed paths with at the Ripley Symposia’s low-residency Master of Fine Arts Program in 2012 or 2013? Jake went back to Ruth Steuben’s spreadsheet and cross-referenced half a dozen names, then he started down those Ripley rabbit holes. But he had no idea what he was looking for, really.

Julian Zigler, attorney in West Hartford, who mainly did real estate and worked at a firm with sixty grinning attorneys, overwhelmingly male, overwhelmingly white. Completely unfamiliar face.

Eric Jin-Jay Chang, resident in hematology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

Paul Brubacker, “scribbler” of Billings, Montana. (The Victor Hugo guy!)

Pat d’Arcy, artist from Baltimore, another face Jake could have sworn he’d never seen before. Six weeks ago, Pat d’Arcy had published a very short story on a flash fiction website called Partitions. One of the many conveyances of congratulations was from Martin Purcell:

Pat! Awesome story! I’m so proud of you! Have you posted on the Symposia page?

The Symposia page.

It turned out to be an unofficial alumni page, through which half a dozen years’ worth of low-residency graduates had been sharing work and information and gossip since 2010. Jake flew back and back through the posts: poetry contests, news of an encouraging rejection from the West Texas Literary Review, an announcement of a first novel’s acceptance by a hybrid publisher in Boston, wedding photos, a reunion of 2011 poets in Brattleboro, a reading at an art gallery in Lewiston, Maine. Then, in October of 2013, the name “Evan” began to pop up in the messages.

Only “Evan.” Of course. Jake supposed this was why the alumni page hadn’t appeared in his initial “Evan Parker” searches. Naturally, the Evan in question would only require his first name, at least to anyone and everyone who’d known him. Evan, the triumphant rescuer of the kidnapped bottle opener. Evan, the guy who sat at the seminar table with his arms tightly folded across his chest. Everyone would know an asshole like that.

Guys, I can’t believe this. Evan died last Monday. Really sorry to have to share.

(This, it was hardly surprising, had been posted by Martin Purcell, Ripley 2011–2012.)

Oh my god! What?

Fuck!

Holy shit that’s so awful. What do you know Martin?

We were supposed to meet up at his tavern last Sunday, I was coming down from Burlington. Then he didn’t text me back. I figured he blew me off or forgot or something. Few days later I called him and I got a disconnect notice. I just had a bad feeling. So I Googled and it came right up. I knew he’d had some problems in the past, but Evan had been sober for a while.

Oh man, that poor guy.

That’s my third friend to overdose! I mean, when are they going to call it what it is? AN EPIDEMIC.

Well, thought Jake. This certainly confirmed his assumption about what “unexpectedly,” “struggles,” and “demons” signified.

Jake’s phone buzzed.

Crab Pot Seattle, Anna had written. There was a photo of a tangle of crab legs and cut-up ears of corn. Beyond that: a window, a harbor.

Jake went back to his laptop and googled the words “Evan+Parker+ tavern,” and a story from the Rutland Herald came up: Parker Tavern, a not-too-classy-looking spot on State Street in Rutland, was under new ownership following the death of its longtime owner, Evan Parker of West Rutland. Jake stared at the building, a run-down Victorian, the kind you’d find on most major streets in most New England towns. It had once probably been someone’s lovely home, but now it had a green neon PARKER TAVERN FOOD AND LIQUOR over the front door, and what looked like a hand-painted sign announcing Happy Hour 3–6.

On his phone, the single word: Hello?

Jake wrote back: Yum.

Enough for two, she wrote immediately.

In the Rutland Herald story the new owners, Jerry and Donna Hastings of West Rutland, hoped to preserve the bar’s traditional interior, eclectic draft selection, and, above all, warm and welcoming ambiance as a meeting place for the community and visitors alike. When asked about their decision to retain “Parker Tavern” as the bar’s name, Jerry Hastings answered that it was out of respect: the late owner’s family went back five generations in central Vermont, and before his tragic and untimely death Evan Parker had worked for years to make the tavern the success it was.

Okay then! Anna texted. Obviously not feeling chatty at the moment. No worries! Or maybe you’re communing with your muse.

He picked up his phone again. No such thing as the muse. No such thing as “inspiration.” It’s all deeply unspiritual.

Oh? What happened to “everybody has a unique voice and a story only they can tell”?

It’s gone to live with the Yeti and the Sasquatch and the Loch Ness Monster in Atlantis. But I actually am working right now. Can we talk later? I’ll bring the Merlot.

How will you know which one?

I’ll ask you. Of course.