The Complete Short Fiction of Charles L. Grant, Volume IV: The Black Carousel (19 page)

Four chairs, one a rocker.

After a second’s consideration, Kayman settled
in the one nearest the steps and with a grunt propped his slippered
feet on the railing. It wasn’t very comfortable considering the
state of his knees, much easier when he was younger, but it was the
only way he knew how to sit out here without feeling as if he were
a captive in some god awful home, waiting for an officious scrawny
nurse to bring a blanket for his legs and a scolding for being out.
Defiantly casual, the hell with the cramps. Then: the hell with
this too, what are you trying to prove, you’re all alone, you old
fart. But he waited a long second before lowering his legs, then
pulled the chair forward and folded his hands across his stomach.
Better; much better. This way he could see Northland Avenue without
having to squint between his feet. Not that there was anything to
see this time of day, but it was the principle that mattered, and
the fact that he was ready.

He was a large man still, though his arms showed
signs of shrinking, and over the past two years he’d let his hair
grow to his shoulders. The young men stared with amusement, the
young women sometimes shook their heads in pity, but he didn’t mind
the reaction as long as they didn’t laugh in his face.

This far along, he figured he’d earned the right
to do what he wanted, look how he wanted, sit all damn day if he
wanted without being scolded.

Behind him, a light he sensed more than saw.

She was up.

She was always up when the space beside her was
empty. She would call him, call again, before grabbing her robe
from the bedside chair and slipping it on, come down to the kitchen
and stand at the stove wondering which would be better this
morning, tea or cocoa. Whichever it was, it would be too hot. In
the middle of a blizzard, it would always be too hot.

All right, you old jackass, he thought; all
right, no need to be cranky. She does her best, she ain’t a
magician, y’know.

Have to be, he answered, stick with you all this
time.

Begrudging smile, and a grunt.

The breath of a west wind trembled the ivy and
lace-top ferns, a branch creaked, leaves pawing at the house, the
panes, like the small hands of beggars; somewhere up the street,
wind chimes discordant and distant enough to be a dream.

The smell of damp.

He leaned forward then, looked up from under the
eaves, tried to tell from the missing stars if the cloud he had
seen the night before was still there, if there would be rain
today. For a change. The grass, while not dying, wouldn’t last much
longer; the flowers, while not wilting, would soon lose their
brilliance. He could use the sprinkler the way his neighbors did,
of course, in the middle of the night when they thought no one was
watching, no one could hear. But they could afford the higher
quarterly bills; they could pay without wincing.

Rain was what he needed.

For this, and other things.

But he could see nothing conclusive. Too many
streets, and the street lamps too bright despite their foliage
cloaks. He’d have to wait until sunrise.

The cat stirred then, claws scratching across
the straw welcome mat, a single thump when its tail met the wall, a
single mutter when it yawned.

She was coming.

His hands, still clasped, shifted to rest
beneath his chin, felt the stubbles there and rubbed across them.
He had last shaved two days ago, best he could remember. Maybe
today he’d strop the old razor and mow his cheeks clear, maybe not.
She was the only one who would have cared, and she didn’t. She
kissed him anyway, wrinkling her nose and lightly boxing his ear,
telling him she would pack and run away if he didn’t make himself
presentable, for her if not the world.

She wouldn’t.

The grass grew and the cat slaughtered birds and
she was always there when he woke up in the middle of the night,
listening to the voices whisper under his window.

The screen door complained.

The cat arched its back and waddled to the
glider, sniffed the thin cushion, jumped up, and settled with a
great chorus of rusty hinges.

“This is getting to be a habit,” she said, not
really complaining, taking the chair beside him and settling her
robe about her knees, tucking her feet back. “Maybe we could move
the mattress down here, you wouldn’t fall down the stairs in the
middle of the night.”

He nodded.

A cup nudged his arm until he took it, blew on
it, sipped it.

Tea, and too damn hot. Gingerly he placed it on
the floor beside him before it burned through his fingers.

Wind soughing and sighing, a leaf jumping in the
drive.

“Don’t see why you don’t put on the porch
light.”

“I like the dark,” he told her, as he’d told her
before, many times. “The light’s too damn noisy this time of
day.”

“This time of day is for sleeping, not sitting.”
Footsteps on the pavement, soft and slow.

“No. Thinking.”

She chuckled. “Oh really, now. About what? You
do it every morning most days anymore. What’s left to think
about?”

The footsteps approached the house from the
right. Soft and slow. Not someone walking a dog, not someone home
impossibly late from a party. Not someone heading for work,
impossibly early. Someone walking. Soft and slow. Taking his
time.

The rocker tipped back as a short rotund man in
a well-worn tweed jacket ridiculously warm for the weather and much
too tight across his shoulders sat down with a theatrical moan,
pulled out a cigarette, and lit it. “The trouble with getting
married, Kayman,” he said, hoarse and reedy, “is that you’re never
alone when you want to be.”

“I’m not married, Johnny.”

“Oh. Of course. I forgot.”

“Was once.”

“I remember.”

“Didn’t much like it.”

The cigarette winked orange. “I remember that
too.”

Her hand covered his on the armrest. A gentle
touch. A tender squeeze. Fingers more bone than flesh, though they
couldn’t be any softer. “Still thinking?”

He looked at her, had to look down, and nodded.
“Like I said, Estelle.”

Her face, barely visible despite of the glow
from the street, was pale, more wrinkled than his, eyebrows still
dark though her hair was loose and grey. Whenever she despaired and
threatened a face-lift, he insisted they weren’t old wrinkles, they
were character wrinkles. He was partly right. If she lived another
thirty years she would never be ancient.

“They called again yesterday, you know,” she
said, squeezing again, easing off. “While you were at the hardware
store, yelling at poor Mayard.”

“Wasn’t yelling,” he insisted. “Damn fool sold
me shoddy goods. Can’t do my work if he sells me shoddy goods.”

“You whack at the cat with a yardstick, dear,
and you hit a tree, it’s going to break. That isn’t shoddy, that’s
dumb.”

“Yeah, well . . .” He pulled a handkerchief from
his pocket and blew his nose loudly. “He gave me another one.”

“Because he’s a good man.”

A band of cigarette smoke floated over the
railing, shredding slowly.

A slight shift in the breeze and he caught the
perpetual smell of sawdust that clung to his clothes, his skin,
residue of his cabinetry, the work he had done, and done well,
since leaving the office several decades ago. His avocation had
become, overnight, his vocation. It also supplemented the
government checks that weren’t large enough to feed a sparrow. He
inhaled, and smiled to himself; his sawdust and Estelle’s perfumed
soap, what a combination.

He looked back to the street, listening to the
footsteps taking their time arriving. “They called, huh?”

She nodded, fussing with the cloth belt of her
robe. “Right after Flory did. She wanted to know if we’d have
dinner with her this weekend. I said it was all right.”

He grunted.

“Then,” she said, “it was them. Not two seconds
later. I didn’t even have time to take a breath. I didn’t want to
tell you. You’d only get mad.”

“Damn right.”

“But I can’t sleep when they get like that.
Kayman, what if they take me?”

“Worrying,” he said, turning his hand over,
clasping hers, “is my job, remember? It was our deal. Yours is to
keep me from attacking the ladies.”

Her smile was one-sided. “Not much to worry
about there anymore.”

“Oh, you think so?”

Her free hand brushed across his cheeks, under
his chin, patted the side of his neck. “Wearing a hedgehog like
that, they won’t come near you.”

The footsteps paused.

“Hedgehogs,” he said haughtily, “are mighty damn
cute.”

The footsteps moved on.

“And damnit, how many times have I told you,
they aren’t going to take you if you don’t want to go.”

He couldn’t see who it was.

“What are you frowning at?” she asked.

“Trying to see who’s out there this time of
morning. Crazy time for exercise. Be dead before they’re
forty.”

The hand slipped away.

He closed his eyes briefly: oh hell.

“Kayman.”

“Okay, all right.”

She always got like this — distant and close to
whimpering — when she couldn’t see what he saw, hear what he heard.
Her eyes were worse than his, but she wore her glasses only when
she cooked or watched television; his eyes, touch wood, had never
needed a day’s correction in his life. Never would. He was old,
just a spit the other side of seventy-five; but he damn sure wasn’t
feeble.

“Kayman, please don’t do that again. It scares
me.”

“I forgot. I’m sorry.”

“Promise me.”

“Promise.”

The cigarette drew an orange rectangle in the
dark. Kayman reached down for his tea, drank it and wished to hell
she’d forget about what all the doctors said and give him sugar
once in a while, this tasted like colored water, then handed her
the cup. “Think maybe you’d better get some rest.”

She shook her head. Yawned. Laughed.

“See?”

“All right,” she said.

He stood, helped her up, put an arm around her
waist and walked her back to the door. Hugged her, kissed the top
of her head. “Sleep in. You need it.”

Her lips moved against his chest, a palm patted
his hip, and she was gone.

“ ’Night, Estelle,” Johnny called.

Kayman watched her through the screen, watched
her pause at the foot of the stairs before using the bannister to
pull herself up. One step at a slow time. Head bent, right arm
angled away from her side for balance. Stopping. Looking up.
Climbing. Her new hip giving her trouble again. That, and other
things.

Goddamn, you die on me, Estelle, he thought to
her back, suddenly angry, you’ll kill me.

The cat leapt off the glider, the shriek of the
chains spinning Kayman around, right hand in a fist, eyes narrow as
he searched the porch, the yard he could see, for intruders,
invaders, his breath quick and shallow, heat flushing through his
cheeks until, with a relieved gasp, he sagged against the wall and
wiped his face with his forearm.

“Jumpy,” Johnny said. A dark-spotted hand patted
down gleaming, stiff black hair. “Nerves like that will put you in
your grave.”

“Shut up.”

“It’s my curse: my tongue.”

“Shut up anyway.”

“If you like.”

Hands deep in his pockets, he left the porch and
walked down the drive. At the sidewalk he made another check of the
sky, and despite his hope there’d be showers later, for his grass
and flowers, he really didn’t want them. The rain bothered him. It
did too many things it wasn’t supposed to do; some days it made him
believe he was losing his mind, one thought at a time, and since
the beginning of summer it had been getting progressively worse.
The concrete’s chill seeped up through his slippers and locked his
knees. Down the street, toward Thorn Road, headlamps blared and an
engine raced at the curb.

A glance down, and he spotted his shadow and
relaxed, took a deep cleansing breath, and decided to take a quick
nap on the couch before breakfast.

The sun was on its way.

The clouds he spotted were thin and shapeless,
more a haze than a cover.

Back on the porch, he pulled the chairs away
from the railing, scratched the cat behind its ears until it
granted him a purring, took hold of one of the glider’s chains and
squinted at the hooks buried in the ceiling. Oil, he decided; a
little oil later will stop all that racket. Get the stepladder,
listen to Estelle worry about his falling, squirt some oil up
there, over here, it’ll be silent as a ghost.

You too, he warned the screen door when it
opened loudly; your days are numbered, you squeaky son of a bitch;
and when it slammed shut behind him, its spring too taut, he kicked
at it, stalked into the living room and stood in the middle of the
floor, seeing none of the books on their shelves, none of the
magazines in their cradle by her armchair, none of the framed
photographs on the bare oak mantel. He saw his reflection instead.
Head and neck on the wall over the sofa.

He recognized the face well enough; he didn’t
recognize the expression. Like a child whose favorite toy had just
broken, and he didn’t understand why, and didn’t yet want to cry;
like a young man whose girl had just walked out of the room, head
up, hips swinging, elbows angrily tight to her sides, and he didn’t
know why, and didn’t yet want to cry; like a man who watched at the
site of a grave while a rumbling machine made of greasy cogs and
strips of dark green canvas lowered a coffin into a hole, bearing
flowers and brass, and he didn’t understand, and didn’t yet want to
cry.

No; not true.

Not true at all.

He dropped heavily onto the center cushion, sat
there a short while before letting himself slowly topple over. Legs
up, slippers kicked off toe to heel, one hand under his cheek, the
other dangling over.