The Complete Short Fiction of Charles L. Grant, Volume IV: The Black Carousel (21 page)

But somewhere along the line, somewhere back
there in the late payment of bills and the deals made with
creditors and the time they had nearly lost the car to the bank,
that woman began to sink and the other one had emerged. It didn’t
make any difference that no store, no credit card, no lender, had
ever been cheated; it didn’t matter that eventually everyone got
their cup of his blood. She sank. She surfaced.

Ronnie died.

Ronnie was born.

“You going to tell me or are you just going to
stand there like a lump?”

She stubbed the cigarette out in a saucer on the
kitchen counter and leaned back, palm to her chin, elbow cradled in
her other hand.

“Hanging on,” she said at last. A shrug. “What
the hell else can you do?”

“You could pull yourself up.”

A smile sweet and sour. “To do that, you’d have
to let go.”

Right, he thought bitterly as he watched a pair
of squirrels chase each other around the pond, scaring the ducks
into the middle, making a couple of kids on the other side roar
with laughter; right.

So he worked harder, made more money, and the
day after he turned forty, she left him.

Or at least, he thought with grim satisfaction,
she gave it a good try.

The squirrels paused in front of him, tails up
and quivering. Then one bolted and the other followed, and he heard
them soon after climbing the tree at his back, chattering,
scrabbling, chattering again.

The water darkened.

He peered through the branches, shading his
eyes; the overcast had thickened.

Oh lord, he thought, licking his lips nervously;
oh lord, it’s gonna rain.

In the last hour of the dead, he stood alone on
the porch, fully dressed. The sky was still cloudy, the wind still
damp, the cat crouched on the glider and growling low in its throat
as shadows drifted across the lawn, wove dark patterns between the
flowers, approached but did not come near the unlighted house. They
never came near. They were never allowed.

He watched them without expression. Not shadows
at all, not really; disturbances of the air that made things slowly
turn, that made things shift, that confused and blurred vision
until shapes were created, and forms, and figures.

Not shadows at all.

I tried, he thought dejectedly, knowing they
would listen; a hundred times I tried to explain, but this time
Flory got mad. My fault, I suppose, but she didn’t have to walk
out. Damn woman. Thinks she’s so goddamn smart, got all that
education, read all them books, thinks she knows more than I do
about what I know, figures she can put a baby bandage on it and
kiss it and make it better and it will all go away, but she doesn’t
know anything, Jesus Christ, she don’t know and she damn well won’t
bother to listen because what the hell, I’m an old man, right?, I
don’t know shit from shinola, I’m losing my grip, I got that
disease whatever the hell you call it, it rots your brain so you
can’t even shit by yourself anymore, can’t remember your kid’s
name, so why should she pay attention to someone like me when
someone like me don’t even know what’s going on in the world, not
like her, not like her books, hell, no, she’s just too good, been
screwing around with me all this time, probably writing one of
those paper things shrinks gotta write to get famous or rich or get
a promotion or whatever it is she’ll get from pretending all this
time she was my friend, I’m her goddamn second father and she
probably left him too, probably left him lying in a hospital dying
of one damn thing or another, calling for her while she’s out
telling other people how to run their lives with fancy words that
ain’t nothing but damn good common sense.

The hell with it.

The wind strengthened.

He checked the dining room window, but he didn’t
see any light. She hadn’t woken up, she hadn’t come down, she was
still asleep up there all alone while he was down here, talking to
his damn self and trying to hold on. Hold on. That’s all he had to
do until her goddamn kids finally saw the goddamn light. Hold on.
Then they’d go away and she wouldn’t think he was crazy.

But at least it wasn’t raining.

At least the shapes and forms and figures out
there weren’t even shadows.

Count your lucky stars, Kayman old boy, count
your lucky stars even if you can’t see them.

That afternoon, Estelle decided to go to the
market to get some things for the larder. He knew she really didn’t
need to, there was plenty to eat in the cupboards and the fridge,
but he had stuck around the house all day, feeling guilty about his
meeting with Flory, wanting to do something to atone. But there was
nothing to do. The screens had all been patched where needed, the
back stoop repaired, the lawn mowed just a few days ago, the garage
cleaned out the week before — the easiest job these days since they
no longer had a car. So he followed her, making her laugh at his
earnest pleas for work, making her impatient when he tried to do
her chores as well.

“That does it,” she announced in exasperation
when he asked, practically begged, if he could help clean the
silverware. “You’re driving me nuts. I’m going to the store.”

“Good idea,” he agreed. “I’ll go with you.”

Immediately, her hand slapped and clung to his
chest.

“You can go, but you can’t stay with me or I’ll
probably end up braining you with a pork chop.”

“Okay.” He held up his hands. “Okay, no
problem.”

As he hurried upstairs to brush his hair and
shave, he caught a glimpse of her expression, and it almost changed
his mind. She was still worried. But it wasn’t about herself. Him.
It was about him. He knew that look, knew it as well as he knew the
touch of her lips. He had seen it for nearly twenty years whenever
he was ill, whenever he injured himself doing carpentry or
plumbing, whenever he slept too long or didn’t sleep enough or ate
too many antacids or too many aspirins. He knew that look, and in
knowing it knew that sometime that morning, Flory must have called
and told her everything.

He cut himself shaving, the first time in a
decade.

For the first time in a decade he didn’t check
the hairs left in the brush.

“Hon, are you okay?” she called from the
foyer.

Eyes closed, hands gripping the edge of the
sink, feet well apart, breathing in, breathing out, shaping his
rage into something he could handle.

“Down in a minute. Gotta make myself
beautiful.”

“Damnit, Kay, I’m an old woman, I haven’t got
the time.”

In spite of himself, he chuckled, laughed,
practically skipped out of the bathroom and down the stairs.
Grabbed her in his arms and kissed her. Kissed her again when she
gasped and stared in amazement.

“What . . . ?”

“Ask me no questions,” he said, leading her out
the door, “I’ll tell you no lies.”

“When pigs fly,” she said, and waved when a car
honked at the curb.

He stiffened.

“Kayman,” she said, voice low and warning. “My
hip’s giving me trouble today. The rain coming, I guess. So I
called Norma for a ride. Don’t you dare say a word.”

That was an easy promise, and he gave it with as
much good grace as he could manage. It was hard, though; lord, it
was hard. Norma Hobbs, for a schoolteacher, was about the most
unpleasant woman he had ever met in his life. She lived two houses
down, by herself, and had been alone since her husband died, in his
twenties, of cancer. To be honest, he wasn’t so sure about that; he
figured it was her vinegary temper that had really done him in; and
the tart sting of her tongue. He pitied the children who were stuck
in her class.

Yet she was fine with Estelle. Wonderful, in
fact, and for that reason, if no other, he tolerated her
presence.

“Big of you,” Johnny said. He sat in the
backseat with him, blowing smoke out the window behind Norma’s
head.

“Shut up,” Kayman grumbled. He was in no mood
for chatter.

“And the horse you rode in on,” Johnny replied,
pouting. He fussed with his tweed jacket. “I just wanted to tell
you something, that’s all.”

“Don’t want to hear it.”

The silence made him turn.

Johnny stared out the window, rocking easily as
the car took the first corner and they passed the hospital.

Kayman rubbed his hands together.

This wasn’t right.

Never, ever, was Johnny at a loss for words; and
never, ever, had he offered any information. He came, alone or with
Brenda, and they argued and laughed and bickered and remembered. It
was a routine. It was right.

This wasn’t.

“What?” he asked softly. ‘Johnny, I’m sorry.
What?”

Johnny’s head swiveled around slowly.

“Damn,” Norma said, “I think it’s starting to
rain.”

‘Just spitting a little,” said Estelle. “It’ll
make your hair grow.”

The teacher chuckled.

“What, Johnny?”

“They came,” he said at last.

Kayman frowned. “What? Who came?”

The cigarette pointed at the drops of water
skidding along the window. “They did.”

“Johnny, you’re not making sense.”

A teardrop in Johnny’s right eye, shimmering,
growing, became a raindrop on the glass that slipped out of
sight.

Kayman reached out, passed a hand through the
place where his best friend had been. “Johnny?”

A hand touched his shoulder, and he yelped,
threw himself back in the seat, a hand before his face as if
warding off a curse.

“Kayman!”

He blinked, felt his heart try to leap from his
chest, and stared through the window. “I’m okay,” he said.

“You most certainly are not.”

“You startled me.”

“You were talking to yourself,” Norma said,
maneuvering into the parking lot behind the theater. “Gotta watch
that stuff, Kayman, they’ll take you away and Estelle will have to
move in with me.”

“Kayman?”

He looked without turning his head. “I’m okay, I
said.” Looked away. People on the sidewalk, no umbrellas yet, none
of the cars using their wipers. When the car stopped, Estelle
immediately got out, pulled up the seat back, and leaned in. Pale.
Frightened eyes, don’t-leave-me-alone eyes.

A smile and wink only meant to be reassuring,
only made her suspicious. He winked again and pushed forward until
she had to give way. Once on his feet he gave her shoulders a quick
hug and told her not to spend them into oblivion, they weren’t
exactly laying in for a blizzard.

Norma led her away, chatting rapidly, clearly
not concerned about his health or state of mind.

Estelle looked back once, just before they
crossed the street.

When a van passed between them, he put a hand on
the car roof to brace himself

they came

All right, he thought; all right, it’s all
right, he’s just mad you snapped at him, he’ll be back. They always
came back. Not all at one time, though. Not even in groups. But
they came, some more than others, the rest of them waiting until he
wanted to talk. So what did Johnny mean? Of course they came.

One or two at a time.

His face dampened from the drizzle, and he wiped
it off hard, crossed Chancellor Avenue and walked up toward the
Brass Ring. It wasn’t too early. A drink would calm him down. Maybe
Brenda would be there. Johnny, too. A shudder that made some of the
pedestrians glance at him, look away. Ronnie wouldn’t be there. At
the Crow yesterday was the first time he’d seen her in over a year.
He seldom wanted to. She never spoke, never told him how she was.
She wouldn’t be there.

God, he hoped she wouldn’t be there.

She wasn’t.

A sparse crowd, a few at the bar, a few at the
tables in back watching a lackluster game of darts. He chose the
bar, the stool closest to the wall and near the door. Nigel didn’t
ask; he brought over a glass of beer, gave him a nod, moved away.
Kayman drank slowly, and slowly dammed the panic he’d felt flooding
the car. The air-conditioning helped, lifting the muggy heat from
his back, raising gooseflesh on his arms until he rubbed it away.
Then he let himself look around, as he twisted until he could lean
against the wall. The bar was a square horseshoe, and around the
corner, two stools down, a tall man in a white shirt, his jacket
folded over the brass rail, lifted his empty glass for Nigel to
refill. It was the man in the Cock’s Crow.

Kayman grinned — it was Teddy Tarman from up on
Devon Street, near the graveyard. A lot older than when seen from a
distance, but not nearly as old as he. An electrician who had once
helped Kayman rewire the house, asking in return nothing but a new
dining table Kayman had been pleased to make, and pleased to note,
on a visit not too long ago, how well the man had tended it over
the years.

“On me,” he told Nigel when the refill was
brought.

“Thanks,” Tarman said. “What’s the
occasion?”

“Feeling good, that’s all.”

“Ain’t gonna argue.”

They talked baseball for a while, about the
football training camps and how the new kids seemed to be, this and
that and eventually speculated on the whereabouts of Casey Bethune,
who had evidently flown the coop a couple of weeks ago. Rumor
claimed murder and illicit sex, but rumor, Kayman claimed, was more
bloodthirsty than real life. Tarman laughed, agreed, and grabbed
his jacket. A thanks for the beer, a call to Nigel, and he was
gone.

Kayman’s smile died.

Teddy Tarman.

Why the hell hadn’t he remembered the name
before? Or the face? Anything?

Swallow your pride, he ordered; don’t be a fool,
swallow your pride.

Before he lost his nerve, he paid for the drinks
and hastened outside, paused when the heat grabbed him again, then
walked quickly up to High Street, turned the comer, and stopped at
a doorway between the piano shop and a clothing store. He’d never
been here in all this time. Usually he met Flory in the park or at
the Crow, a couple of times in the Brass Ring. But never in her
office. What if she had a patient and couldn’t talk to him? What if
she didn’t have a patient and still wouldn’t talk?