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REMIK RESEARCH : Your Source for All Things H. Lee Remik
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A fan page dedicated to an important and yet largely overlooked figure in prose fiction, H. Lee Remik. This page has no official association with H. Lee Remik.
ABOUT
H. Lee Remik is a critical member of prose fiction, though his career has evidently been put on pause due to a sudden five year hiatus fans can only chalk up to intense writer’s block. Remik is the author of several works, from poetry, fantastical short stories, and one novel, The Future Regrets, which was a finalist for the Writers of the Future award in 1998. Remik is characterized by his elusive personality; no official photographs of him exist, nor any television or radio appearances. His journalistic endeavours, which fans have used to track his career, have ceased, effectively placing Remik off the grid.
Fans of Remik’s work have come together on this site to uncover the mystery of Remik and his work, in the hopes that they will find him again.
NEWS
POEMS
FICTION
CONTACT
At first, it didn’t bother Will very much. If anyone was to understand how impactful art could be, how it found its way around the grooves of your bones and reached out to your heart, it was Will Byers.
That shade of sentimentality was what drew Will to Peter in the early days. It was 1998, at 11:47pm in Greenwich Village, and Peter - who would later that night be known as Peter Malone - had taken Will’s coat for him at a party at so-and-so’s apartment celebrating such-and-such.
It was against Will’s better judgment to indulge in the hysteria that was love at first sight, but he was certainly taken by Peter. The spitting image of Christian Slater if he sported a dirty blond head of hair, Peter was an NYU graduate turned journalist for the paper Eyes on NY. He made Will laugh about 52 times that night, he had spilled white wine on his brown trousers, and he had a tattoo of lily flowers honouring his mother on his wrist, which Will found very sweet.
Three years later, Will still remembers all of the little details from their first meeting, much to Peter’s disbelief. It was the sort of habit Will had when it came to the people he loved, remembering every line and shade of their identity like a favourite painting he could describe with his eyes closed.
There was, however, one specific aspect of Peter that Will had failed to understand: H. Lee Remik.
Will had not been aware that being with Peter meant having to share Peter with another. There had been the surprise revelation once or twice in Will’s early dating life, a blind date revealing his aversion to monogamy, or that his girlfriend was frequently out of town. Will had always been quick to extricate himself from such relationships.
Peter’s revelation, one which came to startling clarity when they moved in together in their place in Westchester, was a different story altogether, because, as far as Will could tell, H. Lee Remik did not exist.
Not that Will didn’t make the attempt to understand Peter’s intense fascination with the seemingly vanished writer. It was impossible not to exercise a shred of interest when the den of their cozy home in Westchester was turned into a shrine of H. Lee Remik’s work. Copies of every publication Remik penned piled on the coffee table, his single novel bursting with coloured note tabs, his poetry collections pinned to a corkboard like an investigative chart. It was a fervour expected from a journalist, but the target seemed, at least to Will, a tad overrated.
“I don’t understand why you’re trying to find this guy,” Will said through a mouthful of cereal one morning, watching Peter hunched over his iBook G3, furiously typing away on the blog dedicated to Remik. “Maybe he just doesn’t want to write anymore.”
Peter didn’t even look up from the computer as he responded. “Babe, nobody creates masterpieces like these just to give it all up and disappear. The guy was getting award traction.”
“How do you even know it’s a guy? The name is made up, right? What if it’s like The Outsiders, maybe a woman wrote everything under a pen name?”
Peter shook his head. “Trust me, we-” Peter jabbed a finger towards his computer, “figured out it’s a guy.”
That ridiculous certainty always made Will roll his eyes and drop any line of questioning he had. That and Peter’s use of ‘we’ when it came to him and his online Remik groupies, a bunch of creative writing professors who had referred to Remik for lectures, or sci-fi literary junkies. Will was not part of that group of an odd one hundred people, which, admittedly, hurt.
He simply didn’t find the appeal of obsessing over every word in the limited works of some faceless author who clearly didn’t want to be found.
Luckily for Will, he didn’t need to be in their house every moment of every day. After a series of odd jobs to make ends meet while studying in NYC (painting theatre sets for off-off-off-Broadway shows, modelling, humbling retail, hosting art classes at the library), Will finally found his place as an art teacher at the elementary school when he and Peter moved out of the city. For a long while, creating had become a form of self-inflicted torture for Will, but teaching young, cherub-faced children how to mix primary colours and finger paint lit his artistic spark once again. His kids (yes, he thought of all 23 of them as his kids, even though he only had them for an hour three days a week) excitedly showing him their pictures brought him a joy that he thought had been lost forever to the memory of his hometown.
The best part of his job? No mention of H. Lee Remik.
Will didn’t have many outlets to voice his exasperation with Peter’s fanaticism over the writer. Despite how intensely aggravating Peter’s devotion was, and how bothersome his posture was at the computer when he sat there for hours on end chatting away with strangers online, Will loved Peter. He loved their routine, their walks in the park, that Peter was steady and comfortable like a cozy sweater, a stability Will greatly appreciated in his life. Honestly, Will supposed that there was something, well, admirable about his boyfriend’s spanning knowledge for such a specific topic, but was it really so terrible for Will to want some of that attention directed back at him? At something they could both care about, like Spielberg movies or time consuming LEGO projects that would give them a crick in the neck and the swell of satisfaction from a project completed together?
They used to do pleasant things like that early in their relationship, but activities like that were now few and far between.
The one person who listened without complaint was Jonathan, who came out to Westchester from Brooklyn whenever he wasn’t preoccupied with editing his latest documentary or attending film festivals. Jonathan was perfectly content living in Brooklyn, the rumbling of the train like hearing the city’s heartbeat, the eclectic nature of the city and its many boroughs, the sea of people, the sights, the forever pungent smell so different from sleepy Hawkins. Jonathan couldn’t understand why Will had moved to Westchester.
Will had had three roommates back in New York, and, while the scene was much more exciting and liberating for a now openly gay man, there was the sticky, ever present feeling that Will didn’t really fit quite right in a big city. He didn’t care about going out every weekend, he didn’t like squeezing into the sweltering subway during the summer heatwaves, and he really didn’t love the constant noise, which always impeded his train of artistic thought. It was the City That Never Sleeps, but Will was well and truly tired, unlike most 32 year olds. Westchester, by comparison, felt familiar, slower, somewhere Will could really truly find his footing in a world that seemed intent to knock him off balance at every turn.
“So, Peter’s coming back when?” Jonathan asked as he sprinkled salt onto his scrambled eggs. It was an early Saturday morning, and the brothers were having breakfast at Will’s favourite diner, Happy’s. It was a brick building with a striped awning and the name hand painted with gold on the window where Jonathan and Will sat, watching the neighbourhood slowly rise.
“Tonight,” Will answered. “He had to go back into the city just the other day. An anniversary for the paper, celebrating with the team.”
Jonathan made a small hm in acknowledgement. “And you didn’t feel like going?”
“Not really. Honestly, I just wanted the house to myself for a bit.”
“Oh, he’s still on about this whole Remik business?”
Will groaned. “Jonathan, I just don’t understand why he cares so much.”
“Have you read any of the guy’s stuff?” His brother asked thoughtfully.
With a weak shrug, Will admitted, “no. I’ve had Peter explain some of the mythos of Remik to me, because he was going to do that anyway if I read it.”
“Please tell me you’ve actually watched my stuff even though I explain everything to you,” Jonathan quipped. Will knocked his brother’s shoulder with his own playfully.
“That’s different,” Will began. “You’re an actual person who loves what he does. You’re not some faceless person with a fake name who wrote a few things and then disappeared. Peter and his friends are totally mythologizing someone who obviously doesn’t want that!”
“Would you care to enlighten me on what Peter has shared?” Jonathan asked.
Will sipped his coffee. “I don’t know. The guy wrote one book, The Future Regrets, about a time-traveller who tries to warn himself about walking through some door because if he goes through it, he loses the love of his life. It’s five hundred pages,” Will emphasized gravelly. “Peter has probably combed through it with his pen about twice that.”
“C’mon, that sounds like a cool read, though,” Jonathan suggested with a lopsided smile. “You love fantasy and sci-fi stuff.”
“Yeah, but it feels so unethical with the way Peter goes about it, and if I start reading Remik, he’s going to ‘ah-hah!’ me, and I’ll never hear the end of it,” Will sighed, dropping his head in his hands with exasperation.
Jonathan drummed his fingers on the top of Will’s head. “You’re silly, Will. The guy published his work for people to read, however they read it. Who knows, maybe he’s even stalking those forums Peter writes to stroke his ego.”
Will laughed at that. “God, imagine. Ten bucks says this Remik guy comments on there and reveals he ordered the words the way he did ‘cause it just sounded better that way.”
Jonathan held out his hand with a smile, and Will shook it firmly. “You’re on.”
Will went home after Jonathan drove off. In the evening, the air was fresh, a warm hue cast upon the winding streets of his neighbourhood from the setting sun. Will liked driving with the windows down, Fleetwood Mac’s Mystery to Me the golden oldies soundtrack for a golden night.
His and Peter’s place was a rental on the corner of their neighbourhood, a white bungalow shaded by the leaves of the canopy tree, the roof jutting into a triangular point. When his mom and Hopper came in to visit from Montauk, his mother had actually cried at the sight of it. “It’s just such a happy looking house,” she tearfully confessed. Happy tears, she had been sure to confirm.
It was a happy house for the most part, when it wasn’t the hub of Remik Intelligence. Movie nights on the couch, failed attempts at baking birthday cakes, art from Will’s students pinned to the fridge. Will and Peter had lived in the place for almost a year now.
Will walked up the steps and unlocked the door, jiggling the old lock. When it clicked, Will pushed the door open, already fantasizing curling up on the couch with a glass of wine and finally watching the movie he had rented from Blockbuster, Amelie, but his gauzy daydream was pierced at the sound of the door hitting something thick.
For a moment, Will paused. He slowly pushed the door open, and peered inside.
There was a rather thick rectangular yellow package, miraculously pushed through the front door’s mail slot, and laying there on the red threadbare carpet. On the package’s face was a scribbled inscription proclaiming the package as DELICATE.
It didn’t take more than a moment of suspicion for Will to come to the conclusion that this was some asinine addition to Peter’s H. Lee Remik collection. While Will would have much rather just let the package be for Peter to find it excitedly when he came home, curiosity also fluttered at the back of Will’s mind like a flighty little bird.
As far as Will knew, Peter had every work of Remik’s that was available to the public. So what could this one possibly be?
Quickly, Will shut the door, grabbing the package from the ground and crossing over to the kitchen. He laid the package on the counter, and stared at it with his hands on his hips. He chewed on his lip, his movie and wine and couch time totally abandoned.
Whatever was inside was certainly intended for Peter. Will had felt through the packaging that what was inside was stacks of paper, loosely bound together.
“No, I shouldn’t,” Will immediately chastised himself. “I don’t snoop. No! That’s not me.”
He told himself the lines like a wooden actor in a bad play. It was terribly unconvincing, and did not quell his rising curiosity at all.
“It’s not necessarily snooping,” Will reasoned to himself. “It’s not like it’s love letters, or bank statements, or porn. It’s something from this stupid writer who basically has a whole room in my house that I live in.”
Will drummed his fingers anxiously on the counter as he stared at the package.
“I mean, if you look at it that way, I have just as much of a right to look.”
It was a futile reason, one Will didn’t bother to poke any holes in as he carefully opened the package, gingerly pulling out the loosely bound pages. Before him was a page simply titled Heart Aches in the centre, H. Lee Remik’s name naturally graced the space underneath.
In Will’s hands was a manuscript, the original and only version of Heart Aches. The paper seemed to burn in Will’s hands as the realization dawned on him.
How the hell did Peter get his hands on this? Will wondered, flipping through the pages. Will set the manuscript down gingerly, then looked into the opened package for any clues as to who would have possessed the manuscript, and how they decided to part with it for Peter.
Will’s eyes widened. Inside the package was a card made of fancy thick blue paper. He shook it out of the bag, handling it with the care of a detective inspecting evidence.
Congratulations on the bid. Glad to have this off my hands. Hope this meets any and all of your expectations. - A
Will squinted at the sparse words, as if the longer he stared, the more likely he would intimidate some more enticing information to reveal itself. The letter remained unchanged.
He sucked the air between his teeth, tapping the paper against his hand contemplatively. A bid, his mind recited. Peter bid for the manuscript. Shit, I hope it wasn’t an insane amount. Whoever had supplied the manuscript was glad to be rid of it. Whoever had supplied it didn’t seem to be the notorious H. Lee Remik, but someone simply referred to as ‘A’.
“Hm,” Will hummed, limply tossing the card across the counter. His eyes drifted back to the manuscript, the only Heart Aches of its kind.
Glad to have this off my hands. Was it a terrible piece? Was that why Remik had disappeared? How did A factor into it?
The sudden whirring of his mind trying to make sense of the situation made a surprised laugh escape Will. Gosh, he sounded like Peter, trying to jam puzzle pieces together into a picture that made no sense.
“Oh, forget it,” Will told himself, rising to his full height away from the counter. Let Peter read the damn manuscript and obsess over it with his Remik groupies. Let Peter employ his journalistic instincts to track down whoever the hell ‘A’ was.
That sounded like a months - hell, years - long endeavour. Will couldn’t control the annoyed roll of his eyes at having to put up with this Remik business any longer.
He firmly took hold of the manuscript, prepared to put it back in the package, when an idea lit up in his mind like a Christmas bulb.
Maybe Peter needed a new pair of eyes on Remik’s work to help figure out any of the mysteries coded within the text. Maybe Peter needed someone who wasn’t a complete Yes-Man to debate the supposed genius of H. Lee Remik. Jonathan had said it himself only a few hours ago: “The guy published his work for people to read, however they read it.”
The promised glass of wine was poured and Will settled himself contentedly like a cat on the couch. Amelie, however, would have to wait another day. Will had a literary date with H. Lee Remik.
The familiar jiggling of a key in the front door’s lock broke Will out of his reading reverie with a gasp. His gaze darted from the pages in his hands to the clock above the living room archway. It was half past eleven, which meant Will had been absorbed in his reading for the last two hours. His eyes were strained from reading in the faded evening light and the dim glow of the living room lamp.
“Hey hey hey!” Peter called out cheerfully, exhaustion from his trip seemingly nonexistent. He stepped into the entryway, already unzipping his navy bomber jacket. Will snatched the knitted yellow throw blanket off the side of the couch, throwing it over his lap to conceal the open manuscript.
Beaming, Peter came into the living room, leaning towards the couch to give Will a kiss-
“Ew,” Will huffed, teasing. “You have travel breath.”
“And you’re gonna have peanut butter breath,” Peter responded, pulling free from his jacket pocket a Reese’s Pieces bar. He smiled, not noticing Will carefully maneuvering his hands free from under the blanket so as not to jostle the manuscript.
“Thank you,” Will said softly. The acidic burn of guilt began in his chest, feeling very terrible about having gone through Peter’s gift.
“Hey, was there anything in the mail today?”
Will blinked. “Why?”
“Okay, I know you’re gonna roll your eyes, but I ordered this incredibly rare, never before seen manuscript of what’s supposedly Remik’s most recent work.” Peter’s eyes were alight like stars.
“Oh.” Will nodded slowly. “Sounds very exciting.”
“Can you believe it? I’m going to be the first person to read it.” Peter planted a kiss on the top of Will’s head, before heading towards the stairs. “I’m gonna take a shower, alright? Then we can maybe catch up on some Will & Grace.”
“Okay!” Will responded, a bit too enthusiastic for what was a pretty standard evening for the two of them. He waited for Peter to disappear up the stairs, the soft creak of his footsteps sounding from above in the path towards their bathroom, before Will leapt off the couch and ran into their cramped kitchen to discretely tuck the manuscript back into the package and pretend like it had been waiting patiently for Peter’s arrival.
Now, Will felt terrible about having read the pages, robbing Peter the chance of being the first to look upon the text. Will figured the equivalent of hurt was that of one parent witnessing a child’s first words without the other parent present. He tucked the pages back into the package along with the card, but the glue of the package had dried out.
“Shit,” Will cursed, searching through their kitchen drawer under the sink for the tape.
Perhaps comparing Remik’s unpublished work to that of a child’s first words was a bit hyperbolic. It wasn’t quite that big of a deal that Will had read the manuscript first.
And what a strange piece of work it was. Although Will had no personal point of reference when it came to H. Lee Remik’s writing, he hadn’t expected it to be so…distressing.
The story was that of a galactic knight journeying across realms in search of a vanished princess, a being made entirely of light. It was a darkly haunting composite of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Swan Lake, and Trekkian elements, the prose a jumbled concoction of lyricism that made Will’s head spin.
The story was also unfinished. There were threads that went nowhere, run on sentences like the words were making the final push to a finish line, and a thrumming franticness to the story that acted as a heartbeat. No wonder it had never been published. Remik clearly excoriated too much of his own heart to craft the story.
Will turned back to the counter, armed with tape and prepared to carefully seal the package close.
“Is that-?” Peter asked numbly, unexpectedly standing in the shadow of the kitchen doorway like an apparition.
Will almost dropped the tape. He cleared his throat. “It’s the manuscript.”
A shaky inhale from Peter followed, the other man slowly advancing towards the counter. He looked at the half opened package Will was in the midst of sealing.
“A-and you’ve opened it?” Peter stuttered, pointing a shaky finger down to the yellow package.
“I’m sorry,” Will began genuinely. “Let me explain, I didn’t do it to hurt your feelings-“
“This was my package, Will, this is an incredibly rare item for me to have acquired!” Peter cried with a strained smile. “And you’ve opened it before me?”
Will rolled his eyes, his sympathy dripping away like a leaky faucet. “You bid on this! Without telling me! How much?”
“Oh, you don’t even care about this stuff, so why have you gone and read it?” Peter retorted.
“I wanted to see what was so great about this guy’s literary genius! I didn’t know I couldn’t open it before you!”
Peter groaned, scrubbing his hands across his face. “It’s the principle, Will!”
Will scoffed incredulously. “Please, whoever you got this from is just exploiting the poor guy’s work that he didn’t want anyone to see.”
Peter took hold of the package, grabbing it from the countertop like it was at risk of sprouting legs and running away from him, holding it close to his chest as he went back up stairs.
Will hurried to the bottom of the stairs. “You’re not seriously upset, are you?” He called up. There was no answer from Peter.
In disbelief, Will dropped his head onto the banister.
Will wasn’t sure if Peter had ever come to bed that night once he had the coveted manuscript in his hands. The last Will had seen of him was simply the glow of his light slipping past the doorway to his study as Will made his way to bed.
The next morning, Will trudged back downstairs, hoping that the little spat had blown over. Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, he made his way into the kitchen, and brewed a cup of coffee that he would sweeten until it didn’t even resemble the taste of coffee anymore. Just how he liked it.
As the pot gurgled to action, Will decided to turn the TV on in the den for some background noise. However, when he came into the room, he saw the familiar hunched posture of Peter, typing away at the desk.
“Please tell me you did not stay up all night writing,” Will pleaded, leaning against the wall with a pout. Peter’s head whipped around. Will breathed a sigh of relief - although Peter’s blue eyes were hollowed from lack of sleep, he was in different clothes than last night, a bulky red cable knit and jeans.
“Will, I’m really sorry about last night,” Peter apologized. “I was being ridiculous about who read it first.”
Will gave him a small smile, happy that the petty squabble was put to bed.
“In fact,” Peter continued brightly. “It’s great that you’ve had the chance to read it. I had to let the team know as soon as possible about this, let’s face it, totally massive advancement in our research-”
Will didn’t share Peter’s obvious enthusiasm, blinking rapidly at Peter’s announcement. He anxiously scratched his forearm. “You actually shared the piece with them?”
“I need more heads than just ours to dissect it.”
The coffee pot hissed in the other room.
“Peter, I’m not ‘dissecting’ the guy’s work!” Will snapped.
“Then I’ll do it with people who care!”
Will wanted to shake Peter. As much as Will loved him, his complete tunnel vision when it came to this project was wearying. “It’s completely invasive! And the piece is practically unreadable.”
Peter made a face of horror. “Unreadable? Will, baby, it’s avant garde!”
“It’s unfinished,” Will bit out, storming back to the kitchen to pour his coffee and burn some toast that he would, it seemed, eat alone in his room. He tried his best not to fume and say anything he would regret later, but there was a hot coil in his stomach that tightened the longer he thought about Peter and all his internet friends ‘dissecting’ the manuscript. It was like they were all blazer-wearing vultures tearing a bloodied heart to shreds for their own amusement.
Peter obviously didn’t want to listen to a real person when talking about H. Lee Remik. He could only handle such discussions in a digital world, where there was no tone of displeasure or judgement, no facial features to analyze and get offended by.
As Will came back to their bedroom, he saw through the crack of the door, on the desk by the bed, the blank face of the only other computer in the house staring at him like a bottomless pupil.
“Everybody’s real jazzed about the manuscript,” Peter said, joining Will in the kitchen to help dry off the soap from the no longer egg yolk-stained dishes from breakfast. “Y’know, if this gets enough attention, maybe I’ll even score an interview with Remik. Gosh, wouldn’t that be something?”
Will smiled weakly, scrubbing the inside of his coffee mug under the running water. “Don’t get your hopes up, though,” he said. “Maybe Remik won’t be too happy you guys went through his work like that.”
Peter clucked his tongue. “Funny you mention that. Some new user commented on the forum. Berated all of us for what we were doing. That it was unethical. Well, Kafka wrote letters to Milena and they were all published into a book for everyone in the world to read. This guy would probably protest that, too. You two would get along swimmingly,” he added, a teasing lilt to his voice.
“Oh, yeah?” Will lifted an eyebrow. “What was their name?”
“WiseRabbit,” Peter scoffed. “They probably took the first part of that name too literally.”
Will elbowed Peter’s side with a glare. “I think I’m pretty wise, actually.”
For a moment, Peter’s face was frozen and expressionless, until his eyes slid close and a deep sigh escaped him. He abandoned the dishes he had been mopping on the towel by the sink, leaving the kitchen entirely without a word.
“Where are you going?” Will asked, shutting the sink off. Peter was sliding open the accordion door of the hallway closet, grabbing his jacket and red scarf, bundling himself up tightly like he was going to spill apart.
“Out,” was Peter’s muffled curt answer.
Shit, Will cursed, scrunching his face in frustration and disappointment. A part of him wanted to chase after Peter and just forget the whole thing because, really, why were they fighting about such a stupid thing? The other part of Will, a much larger part, stayed rooted to his spot in the house. He wanted Peter to stew with Will (or, WiseRabbit’s) words on how terribly far the whole Remik Research had gone.
Whoever H. Lee Remik was, whoever he decided to become, his manuscript should have remained his. Will felt an ache of sympathy for the faceless writer reverberate throughout him like a plucked guitar string. Maybe A had the manuscript because A was who the story was dedicated to. Perhaps Heart Aches was a gift, one the mysterious A hadn’t appreciated. Was that the reason for Remik’s sudden disappearance?
Now, Peter and his friends were breaking the work down line by line for Remik to potentially see, to relive that hurt. It seemed like a bleak nightmare, one Will had experienced a version of before, years ago.
Will was glad he had said something, to have vouched for Remik’s privacy. Once the dishes were put away, Will returned upstairs to dress himself for the day. He had to drop by the school to pack up his things before Christmas break, and run some errands. He hoped to go to the farmer’s market before the brutal winter chill came barrelling through New York in a white storm.
He saw, once he came to the room, that he had left the computer face open on the stupid forum. His lengthy comment had only gotten one like in the last hour.
Whatever, Will thought, clicking the browser closed.
His eyes fell onto the pixelated mail emoticon. There was a sign indicating that something new was in his inbox, possibly from the school, possibly from Jonathan, most likely spam.
Will opened his mail.
NEW MAIL
NAME: hlremik
SUBJECT: Manuscript
Dear user WiseRabbit,
Thank you for your kind words and advocating for the privacy of me and my unpublished work. No, I don’t frequently stalk fan pages (yes, I’m certainly overestimating myself with the use of plural pages), but I did catch wind of my manuscript being shared without my consent. Not that it’s of much use now, but I’ll be scheming on how to get my work back into my own hands.
I’d appreciate it if this conversation remained strictly between us…That fan page seems to have a pretty intense assortment of characters.
Many thanks,
Lee Remik
Will gawked at the page.
The man who seemingly had vanished off the face of the literary world for the last five years had just made his first appearance in Will Byers’ email.