by Anthology
Sam sat in the chaise longue and watched dully, trapped in the self-pity of writing his own obituary, asking the timeless questions: Who were you? What did you ever do? And why me? Why me now?
He watched the child with concealed revulsion. Randall moved quietly along the back line of hedges, his small boy eyes watchful of the other yards that bordered his own. There had been a time when it was a fetish with the neighbor children to fling a rock when passing, before the two Swihart boys, running away after disposing of their missiles, had fallen into a well no one had even known existed in the corner lot. Too bad about them, but Randall lived with the remembrance of the rocks and appeared to distrust the amnesty. Sam watched as the boy continued his patrol.
The pain within had been worse on that day and Sam longed for the forgetfulness of sleep.
Finally it was time.
The first one came in silence and the memories of that night are lost in time. That one grew easily and alone, for only later life is chronicled. His people migrated and memory flickered into a mass of legends. But the blood was there.
Item: The old man had gardened in the neighborhood for several years. He was a bent man with a soft, broken-toothed smile, bad English, and a remembrance of things past: swastikas, yellow stars, Buchenwald. Now and then he wrote simple poems and sent them to the local newspaper and once they had printed one. He was a friendly old man and he spoke to everyone, including one of the teenage, neighborhood queens. She chose to misunderstand him and reported his friendliness as something more.
On that day, a year gone now, the old man had been digging at rose-bushes in the front yard of the house across the street. Randall had watched, sucking at a peppermint stick the old man had given him, letting the juice run from the corners of his mouth.
The black car had squealed to a stop and the three purposeful boys gotten out. They wore yellow sweaters. On the back of each sweater an eagle had been cunningly worked into the material so that the woven wings seemed to take new flight as shoulders moved. Each boy carried a chain-saw band with a black taped handle. Randall watched them with growing interest, not really understanding yet.
They beat the old man with powerful, tackle-football arms and he had cowered away, crying out in a guttural, foreign tongue. It was over quickly. The old man lay crumpled and bleeding in the rich, dark dirt. The boys piled back into the black car and peeled away at high speed. Randall could hear the sounds of their laughter, like pennants fluttering after them.
Two blocks away the land was not suitable for building. There was a steep hill. The tire blew there and the black car went over the hill gaining speed. It cartwheeled down, spouting enormous geysers of flame, a miniature ferris wheel gone mad; and fire gushed out with an overpowering roaring sound that almost blocked out the screams.
In the morning Sam Moore awoke unrefreshed. On that Saturday the housekeeper-babysitter came on time for a change and he left them sitting in the family room. The television was blaring a bloody war movie, where men died in appalling numbers. Randall was seated, legs crossed, on the floor in front of the television, watching avidly. Mrs. Cable watched the screen and refused to meet Sam’s glance, lost in her own bitter world. There’d been a time when Sam had issued instructions before leaving, but those days were gone. Not very many women would care for a retarded child. Now, enmeshed in his own problem, and really not caring much, he said little. If the watching was casual and the safety of the boy only probable . . . he had still carried out the formal, social necessities of child care.
He looked at the boy and something within him darkened. Ann had been brilliant and her pregnancy had been normal; but the birth had been difficult and the boy a monstrous problem. She had changed. The boy had not. Early tests on him had been negative, but physically there had always been a lack of interest, slow movement, eyes that could track and follow, but did not.
He could not force himself to approach the boy this morning.
“Good-by,” he said, and received a brief look upward with minor recognition involved. A boy is only three once; but what happens when he is three and eight at the same time? When he will be three forever?
On the television screen a dark-skinned soldier dragged his white captain from the path of an onrushing tank. Sam remembered the script. It was one of Hollywood’s message films. Comradeship would continue until the dark-skinned one needed another kind of help.
Outside, he failed to notice the loveliness of the day. He stood in front of the garage and considered. (With the rolling door down, the garage was tight. He could start the car and it would be easy. That was what Ann, his wife, had done, but for a different reason and in a different way. She’d swallowed a box of sleeping pills when he was out of town trying a case. That had been a long time ago after the hospitals and clinics, after the last of the faith healers with their larcenous, sickening morality, the confident, grasping herbalists, the slick charlatans and quacks to whom, in desperation, she’d taken the boy. Four years now. No one had examined Randall since.
(She’d never been really there after Randall was born. She’d wandered on for a while, large, sensitive eyes looking out from some faraway place, her mind a cluttered dustbin of what might have been.
(“Just don’t touch me,” she had said. “I know they said we ought to have another, but don’t. . . . Please, Sam.” And that which was still partially alive in him had died. He knew it was the boy. Now . . . it wasn’t that he’d not loved her, but he could recall her face only in the boy’s face, in that small and hateful visage, that face that had killed the thing Sam loved.)
He rolled up the garage door with a clang, and drove to his law office. Another day, perhaps another dollar. There weren’t many days left now. Dr. Yancey had said sixmonthstoayear and that had been more than four months ago; on the day they had opened Sam Moore and quickly sutured him again to hide the corrupt mass inside.
“Too far along,” Yancey had said, and then added the old words of despair that many men finally hear: “Nothing we can do.”
Siddharta Gautama came easily in the park with the remembrance of elephants. Legends say that the trees bowed to him. His mother, Maya, felt sustained by an intense feeling of power. The blood was strong, but the child was slow and sheltered and the fulfillment never reached, the gift grown into vagueness, never fully used.
Item: Randall sat under a tree in front of the Moore house. He watched the world around him with curious intensity. A honey bee flew near and he watched the creature with some concern, but it did not attack. They didn’t bother him much since that one had stung him in the spring, and he’d destroyed them all for a ten-block radius.
He could hear the loud noise long before he could tell from where it came. A sound truck blared close by. In a few moments it came to Randall’s corner and slowed. On its side there was a garish picture of a man in priestly robes holding a rifle in front of his chest, eyes flashing fire. The sign below said: “Father Tempest Fights Communism.” Music boomed over the speakers, decibels above the permitted limits. Randall held his ears. The sound hurt.
The driver cut the music back and turned up the volume for his hand microphone. “Big rally tonight!” he called. “Hear Father Tempest save the world and tell YOU how to fight the infiltrators who would destroy us. High school gym, seven o’clock.” The voice took on a threatening note. “Don’t let your neighbors be there without you.” In the other seat beside the driver, a man in priestly robes smiled and made beneficent gestures as people came to doors and windows.
Overhead there were sudden clouds and a few drops of rain fell. Lightning bolted from the sky, missed the tall trees, and made a direct hit on the sound truck. Silence came and Randall removed his hands from his ears. People ran into the street and, in a while, Randall could hear a siren.
He left the front yard and went to the window at the side. From there he could see Mrs. Cable. She had managed somehow to sleep through it all. Her mouth hung open and she snored with an easy rhythm. The television was
still on, hot with a soap opera now.
Randall began to pace the back hedge fence, guarding it. There’d been one boy who appeared friendly and would smile at Randall and then slyly do little things of pinching and hitting when no one watched. That was the boy with the BB gun, who shot the squirrel that took the bits of food from Randall’s hand, the boy who killed one of the fish in the fishpond. The squirrel still lived, but it was more cautious now. And there were still three fish in the pond. There had always been three, except for that one day. One of the fish now was not quite the same color and shape as the others.
The big dog came into the yard through the hedge and they frisked together.
Randall smiled at the dog. “Nice dog,” he said. A stump of tail waved in adoration.
Sam spent a dreary day in the office, snapping at his secretary, being remote to clients. Now he was not as busy as he’d once been. He refused cases that might drag. Partly it was the alien thing that grew inside, but partly—and he had a sort of sullen pride about it—there was the matter of being too good at his job. He’d surrounded himself with that job when Ann had gone, merged into it. Now he refused the proffered retainers to defend or prosecute that which he knew he wouldn’t live to see. It was a minor, ethical point, but a man takes greater cognizance of minor points when he begins to die.
His own decisions grew harder to make and clients read it in his eyes and voice. The motley mob that had once invaded his office fell to a whisper and soon, there was time.
He thought about the boy. He knew he’d ignored the child after Ann’s death and, worse, he’d hated the boy, relating it back to Ann, knowing that her suicide was a product of what the boy was.
The newspaper offered escape. The world grew more sour daily and so seemed easier to leave. Today two more countries had quit the United Nations. Sweden reported increased fallout. There was indecisiveness over a new test ban. Two African nations announced the development of their own bombs. In Mississippi a member of a fanatical white organization had shot and killed a circuit judge who’d sentenced nine men accused and convicted of lynching a civil rights worker. In his own state an amendment to the state constitution outlawing the death penalty had lost by a wide margin.
On the way home there was an ache in his back that had never been there before.
Ching-tsai dreamed deeply on the night of coming. The chi-lin appeared to her. She dreamed and missed the dragons that walked the quiet skies. Once again the child was slow and sheltered and kept apart.
Item: Mrs. Cable slept on. Keeping away from prime time, which was reserved for westerns, giveaway shows, comedies and the like, the television presented a program on a housing development in New York. They showed the tenements that were being replaced; they showed the narrow streets and the tired and dirty people. Cameras cleverly watched as the buildings came down and high-rise, low-rent apartments were built. The reporter’s voice was flat and laconic. Crime continued in the rebuilt area. The favorite now was to catch the rent collector in the elevator, strip him, and jam small change up his rectum. Rape increased, for the apartments were better soundproofed than the old tenements.
Randall watched. The people still looked tired and dirty.
After the documentary there was another soap opera. Mrs. Cable came awake and they watched together. This one was about a man and woman who were in love and who were married, but unfortunately not to each other.
The house was hot and empty. Sam went to the open window and saw them. Mrs. Cable was stretched out on the chaise longue, a paper held over her eyes to block the fierce sun. Randall was at the goldfish pond that Sam had constructed in a happier year. Three hardy goldfish had outlived the last harsh winter and the indifferent spring. What they subsisted on, Sam could not guess. He knew that he didn’t feed them.
The boy held small hands over the pool and Sam watched covertly. It was as if the child felt Sam’s eyes on him, for he turned his head and smiled directly at the window. They he turned again to the pool, trailing quick hands in the water. The right one came up gently grasping a goldfish. The boy passed it from hand to hand, inspecting it as it wriggled, then dropped it into the water and the hand sought another.
It was something that Sam had never seen before, but the boy did it with an air, as if it were an often-repeated act.
Randall had an affinity for animals. Sam remembered the incident of the dog. The back neighbors owned a large and cantankerous German shepherd that had been a neighborhood terror since acquisition. Once, when Randall made one of his periodic runaways, Sam had come upon the boy huddled against the dog. Sam stood watching, half expecting the animal, which its owners normally kept carefully chained, to rend and tear. But the dog made no overt move and only whined when Sam took the boy away.
Lately the dog’s conduct must have improved with age, for Sam had seen it playing happily about the neighborhood.
He made up a check and took it out to Mrs. Cable. It paid her for the week and she took it with good grace. Payday was the only time she unbent and showed any real desire to talk.
“Lots of excitement,” she said. “Lightning hit a truck right down the street. I was asleep, but Mrs. Taldemp was telling me. Two men killed.” She shook her head in wonder. “Right down the street and I missed it.” She nodded at Randall. “He’s coming along. He does things he didn’t used to do. Those mean little ones that used to throw rocks don’t come close any more. He used to try to run to them and give them his toys, but he just watches now if he sees one. They stay away when he’s outside.” She shook her head. “He still don’t talk much, but sometimes he’ll say something right out loud and clear when I ain’t expecting it.” She laughed her whinny laugh. “It’s a shame nothing can be done for him. You still trying to get him in that state dumb school?”
Sam fought the pain inside. “Not much use,” he said shortly. “They’re full. He’s way down the list to get in.”
He escorted her to the front door. On most days she kept conversation to a minimum, but today she wouldn’t run down.
“He’s sure quick. There’s a squirrel up in one of them trees. I turned my back and he was up there feeding it. I thought you said that old elm was rotten?”
Sam nodded. Every movement sent a wave of pain up his back.
“Well, he climbed up it and I had a dickens of a time getting him down. Don’t seem rotten to me,” she grumbled.
It was rotten. It had died this spring and never come out in leaves. Sam could see it vaguely out the back window. The other trees were in full leaf. He imagined that he could see buds and small leaves on the elm, but he knew he must be wrong.
He finally got Mrs. Cable out the door and called Doc Yancey. When that was done he eased gingerly into a chair. The pain receded slightly. The boy sat on the floor watching him with a child’s curious intentness, head cocked slightly, completely without embarrassment. Sam admitted to himself that the boy was handsome. His features were regular, his body wiry and strong. Once Sam had visited the State Mentally Retarded Home and the eyes of the children there were what he most remembered. Most of those eyes had been dull and without luster. A few of the eyes had been foolers. Randall’s eyes were foolers. They were bright with the brightness of cold snow, but they lacked involvement with the world around him.
“You hurt, Father?” Randall questioned. He made a tiny gesture with one hand, as if he were testifying and had found a sudden truth and was surprised by it. “You hurt, Father,” he said again. He pointed out the window. “All hurt,” he said.
“Yes,” Sam said. “The whole world hurts.”
The boy turned away as Sam heard the car in the drive. It was Dr. Yancey. The man came in with brisk steps and Sam had a moment of quick, consuming hatred for the other man; the solid, green envy of the sick for the well.
Dr. Yancey spoke first to the boy. “Hello, Randy. How are you today?”
For a moment Sam did not think the boy would answer.
Randall looked at the doctor without partic
ular interest. “I am young,” he said finally, in falsetto.
“He says that sometimes to people,” Sam said. “I think he means he’s all right.”
Yancey went into the kitchen and brought back water and a yellow capsule. “This won’t put you under.” He handed the capsule and water to Sam and Sam downed them dutifully. He let Yancey help him from the chair to the couch. Expert fingers probed him. The boy watched with some interest.
“You’re swollen, but there aren’t any real signs of serious organ failure. You really ought to be in a hospital.”
“Not yet,” Sam said softly. “There’s the boy.” He looked up at Yancey. “How long, Doc?” He asked it not really wanting to know and yet wanting to know.
“Not very long now, Sam. I think the cancer’s spread to the spine.” He kept his voice low and turned to see if the boy was listening.
Randall got up from the floor. He moved quietly and gracefully out of the room and down the hall. A light clicked on in the study.
“He’s sort of unnerving,” Sam said. “He’ll go back in the study and get down books and turn pages. I’ve got a good encyclopedia back there and some medical books I use in damage cases. I suppose he likes the pictures. Sometimes he spends hours back there.”
Some say Ubu’l Kassim destroyed his father two months before the coming. The shock of death and birth weakened the mother thing and she died a few years after. His life was confused, moving from relative to relative, slow maturation. Something within him hid from the world until early manhood.
Item: The books were puzzling. There was so much in them that was so clearly wrong, but they were not cruel of themselves, only stupid and careless. He remembered the mother-thing and wondered why he had hurt her. The father-thing was hurt also, but he had not done that. There was no love in the father-thing, but the father-thing had never hurt him.
