The Gray House

by Mariam Petrosyan

  “Give me a bottle or something,” Noble said, putting out his hand.

  Tabaqui frowned.

  “Want to off yourself? Get some rat poison instead. It’s more certain. And much more predictable.”

  Noble was still waiting with his hand out.

  “Oh, all right,” Tabaqui grumbled, digging in his pockets. “Go ahead, drink whatever you want. Who am I to say anything? I’ve always been one for freedom of choice, you know.”

  He handed Noble a tiny vial. We observed Noble carefully transferring the contents of the cup into it.

  “What about you?” Jackal turned to me. “You’re awfully silent. Tell us something exciting. They say that all the recent Pheasant assemblies were dedicated to you.”

  I sprayed a mouthful of coffee on my shirt. “How did you know? I thought no one cared what we did.”

  “You thought a lot about us that is strange.” Tabaqui giggled. “We strut like stuck-up peacocks, never noticing anything that’s going on around us. From time to time we knock someone’s head off but never notice that either. Our shoulders are heavy with the White Man’s Burden and our hands are weighed down with this thick tome of House Rules and Regulations, where it is written, Attack the weakest, kick a man when he’s down, spoil what you cannot get, and other such useful advice.”

  That was actually pretty close to what I thought of them, and I couldn’t help smiling.

  “There,” Tabaqui sighed, “just as I thought. I was not far off, then. But if you had even a smidgen of tact, you wouldn’t have demonstrated it so openly.”

  “What are those assemblies you’re talking about?” Noble said and tossed a pack of Camels over to me. “I’ve never heard of them.”

  Tabaqui went momentarily speechless with indignation. I laughed.

  “See! This is how you and those like you besmirch our image!” Jackal screeched and snatched the cigarettes from under my nose. “It is because of you that we are perceived as stuck-up peacocks! You have to be a complete nitwit not to know of the Pheasant assemblies. Please don’t judge us by him,” he said, turning to me. “He hasn’t been here for more than a couple of weeks and is really quite ignorant.”

  “Two years and ninety days,” Noble said. “And he still calls me a newbie.”

  Tabaqui reached over and patted his arm.

  “Sorry, old man. I know this grates on you. But if you were to compare your two with my twelve, you’d understand that I have every right to call you that.”

  Noble scrunched up his face as if all his teeth had started aching at the same time. Tabaqui seemed to enjoy that. He even pinked up a little. He lit a cigarette and looked at me with the all-knowing smile of a veteran.

  “So . . . We haven’t really learned anything new except how much learning Noble has ahead of him. And still you’re silent.”

  I shrugged. Good coffee. Funny Tabaqui. Friendly Noble. I relaxed and decided that it wouldn’t be too dangerous to tell them the truth.

  “They threw me out,” I confessed. “By a unanimous vote. They drafted a petition to Shark and he agreed. I’m being transferred to another group.”

  The wheelers of the Fourth put their cups down and exchanged glances.

  “Where to?” Jackal said, trembling with anticipation.

  “I don’t know. Shark never said. Claims it hasn’t been decided yet.”

  “Asshole,” Noble spit out. “Lives like one and will die like one.”

  “Now wait a minute!” Tabaqui frowned, made some quick calculations in his head, and gaped at us. “It’s either us or the Third. No other way.”

  They exchanged glances again.

  “That’s what I thought too,” I said.

  We were silent for a while. Rabbit must have really liked saxophones. The boombox on the counter was wailing continuously. The paper lanterns swayed in the breeze.

  “So that’s why you went asking for Moon River,” Tabaqui mumbled. “I see now.”

  “Have a smoke,” Noble said in a pitying voice. “Why aren’t you smoking? Tabaqui, give him the cigarettes.”

  Jackal absently proffered me the pack. He had very long fingers, like spiders’ legs. Very long and very dirty.

  “Right,” he said dreamily. “Either/or. Either you find out the color of Vulture’s tears, or we all witness the lamentations of Lary.”

  “You think Vulture’s going to cry?” Noble said.

  “Of course. Copiously! Just like Walrus when eating the Oysters.”

  “You mean he’ll eat me,” I clarified.

  “But with deep sympathy,” Tabaqui said. “He in fact possesses a very gentle and tender soul.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “Very comforting.”

  Jackal wasn’t deaf. He sniffled and reddened a little.

  “Well . . . That was by way of me exaggerating. Slightly. I like scaring people. He’s actually a nice guy. A bit out of his head, but only a bit.”

  “Thanks a lot.”

  “You know what? We should invite him over to our table!” Tabaqui exclaimed suddenly. “Why not? It’s a good idea. You can get to know him better, have a little talk. He’d like that.”

  I looked around nervously. Vulture wasn’t here in the Coffeepot. I knew that for certain, but I still got scared that I might have been mistaken, or that he’d appeared while I wasn’t looking, and now Jackal was going to ask him over to meet me.

  “Why are you so jumpy?” Tabaqui chided me. “I told you, he’s really nice. You get used to him quickly. Besides, he’s not here. I meant to invite him over through Birds,” he added nodding at the next table, where two of the sour-faced mourning brigade were playing cards.

  “Tabaqui, stop it,” Noble said. “Leave Vulture alone. Our chances to land a new one are much better than the Third’s, so if you are really in a hurry go invite Blind.”

  Tabaqui scratched himself, fidgeted, grabbed a roll, and swallowed it whole.

  “Drat,” he said with a full mouth, showering himself with crumbs. “So much anxiety . . .” He picked up all the dropped pieces and stuffed them in too. “I am so anxious! How, oh how would Blind react?”

  “Same as always,” Noble said. “He won’t. Whenever has he reacted to anything?”

  “You’re right,” Tabaqui admitted reluctantly. “Practically never. You see”—he winked at me—“our Leader, may his Leadership days last and last, is blind as a bat and so has some trouble reacting. He usually entrusts it to Sphinx. ‘Do me a favor, react for me,’ he says. So poor little Sphinx ends up reacting double. Maybe that’s why he went bald. It must be very tiresome, you know.”

  “You’re saying he wasn’t always bald?” Noble said.

  Tabaqui sent him a withering look. “What do you mean, ‘always’? Like born with it? Maybe he was born bald, but by the time I met him, Sphinx had ample hair up top, thank you very much!”

  Noble said he could not imagine it. Tabaqui countered that Noble always had trouble with his imagination.

  I finally lit a cigarette. Tabaqui’s antics made me want to laugh out loud, but I was afraid it would sound like hysterics.

  “And besides!” Tabaqui remembered suddenly. “Sphinx christened you. How could I forget? You see how nicely it all fits together? Since you are his godson, he’s going to react to you like he’s your loving mommy. Happy ending all around.”

  I seriously doubted that a bald snitch like Sphinx feeling motherly toward me looked like a happy ending, and I said so.

  “Your loss,” Tabaqui said crossly. “Really your loss. Sphinx would make a decent mother. Trust me.”

  “Right. Especially if you ask Black.” Noble presented a fake smile. “There he is, by the way. Call him over. He can tell Smoker what kind of mother Sphinx makes.”

  “You’re twisting my words,” Jackal protested. “I never said for everyone. It goes without saying that as far as Black is concerned, Sphinx is more like a stepmother.”

  “An evil one,” Noble said sweetly. “From those German fairy tales that m
ake children scream at night.”

  Tabaqui pretended not to hear that.

  “Hey! Over here, old man,” he shouted, waving his arms. “We’re right here! Look this way! Hello-o! I’m afraid his eyes are completely shot,” he said with concern, grabbing the last of the rolls. “That’s because of all those weights. Pumping iron is not as healthy as it’s cracked up to be, you know. And what’s more important,” he continued after consuming the roll in two gulps, “he needs to watch his calorie intake. So it would be a good thing not to leave too many carbs lying around. Isn’t that right, Black?”

  Black, a morose fellow with a blond buzz cut, approached with a chair that he swiped on the way, placed it next to Noble, sat down, and stared at me.

  “What’s right?”

  “That you shouldn’t overeat. That you’re heavy as it is.”

  Black said nothing. He really was heavy, but certainly not from overeating. He appeared to have been constructed that way. Then he had bulked up his muscles on various pieces of equipment and become even more imposing. A tank top left his biceps exposed, and I was studying them appreciatively while he was studying me. Tabaqui informed him that I was being transferred, and most likely to the Fourth, to them.

  “Unless it’s the Third, except it’s not, because it’s obvious that when you have a choice you always choose where there’s more free space.”

  “So?” was the extent of Black’s response. His arms looked like hams, and his blue eyes seemed unblinking.

  Tabaqui was crestfallen.

  “What do you mean, ‘so’? You are the first to get an exclusive scoop!”

  “And what am I supposed to do with it?”

  “You’re supposed to be astonished! Surprised, at the very least!”

  “I am surprised.”

  Black got up, bumping a paper lantern with his head, and went to sit at an empty table two spaces over from us. There he proceeded to extract a paperback from his vest pocket and transferred his attention to it, blinking myopically.

  “There,” Tabaqui fumed. “And to think we were denigrating Blind’s responses. Compared to Black, he is vitality incarnate!”

  He was exaggerating about vitality. I’d first met Blind in the hospital wing. We were roommates. In the three days we spent there, he didn’t say a single word. He also almost never stirred, so I came to regard him as just a part of the landscape. He was gaunt, but not tall, his jeans would fit a thirteen-year-old, and both of his wrists together made one of mine. Next to him I was the picture of health. I did not know who he was then, so I just figured he was being bullied a lot. And now, watching Black, I thought that if anyone looked like a Leader in the Fourth, it was certainly him, and not Blind.

  “It’s so weird,” I said. “I don’t get it.”

  “Yep. See, you caught it as well.” Tabaqui nodded. “Of course it’s weird. You look at Black, this tower of power, and even he is walking in the shadow of Blind. That’s what you meant, right? He’s such a commanding presence. Regal, even. Right? We’re all amazed. We live side by side with him, and all day, every day, we are amazed. How come—here he is, and yet he’s not the Leader? And the one who’s the most amazed is Black himself. He wakes up at dawn, casts his gaze about, and inquires, ‘For why?’ Day after day after day.”

  “Can it, Tabaqui,” Noble said. “That’s enough.”

  “I am angry,” Tabaqui explained, draining his coffee. “Can’t abide those apathetic types.”

  I finished my coffee as well, along with my second cigarette. It was clearly time to go. I didn’t want to, though. It was so nice in the Coffeepot. To sit here, to smoke openly, to drink coffee—which, for the denizens of the First, was a kind of mild arsenic. The only thing nagging me was the thought of Tabaqui telling someone else of my transfer. I figured I should leave before that happened. Tabaqui, in the meantime, took out a pad and started scribbling in it with a pen that formerly rested behind his ear.

  “Right . . . Right . . . ,” he was mumbling. “Of course . . . And don’t forget this . . . Naturally. Now that is completely out of the question.”

  Noble was spinning the lighter on the edge of the table.

  “I think I’d better go,” I said.

  “Just a sec.” Tabaqui scribbled for a while longer, then tore out the page and handed it to me. “It’s all here. The basics, at least. Study it, remember it, use it.”

  I stared at his chickenscratch.

  “What’s this?”

  “A guide,” Tabaqui sighed. “The essential information. Survival rules for a migrant. On top: in case of transfer to us. Underneath: to the Third.”

  I looked closer.

  “Something about plants . . . Watches . . . And what do the linens have to do with it? Don’t you get them as well?”

  “We do. But it’s best not to leave behind anything that bears your imprint.”

  “What imprint? It’s not like I smear shoe polish on myself before going to bed.”

  Tabaqui gave me that look again—of a grizzled veteran aggrieved by much wisdom.

  “Look, it’s simple. Everything that’s yours you take with you. Whatever you cannot take you destroy. Nothing that belonged to you must remain. What if you were to die tomorrow? Would you like a black ribbon tied to your cup, accompanied by a disgusting note along the lines of The memory of you is forever in our hearts, O prodigal brother of ours?”

  I shuddered.

  “All right. I get that. But . . . watches?”

  A transferee to the Fourth is strongly advised to rid himself of any and all devices designed to measure time: wristwatches, stopwatches, alarm clocks, precision chronographs, etc. Any attempt to conceal such an item shall be immediately uncovered by the resident expert and, to prevent reoccurrences of this highly provocative behavior, the offending person shall be assigned a penance devised and approved by said expert.

  For anyone being transferred to the domain of the Third, a.k.a. “the Nesting,” it is advisable to acquire the following items: a set of keys (provenance unimportant), two flowerpots in good condition, no fewer than four pairs of black socks, an amulet against allergies, earplugs, a copy of The Day of the Triffids by J. Wyndham, and an old dried plant collection.

  Irrespective of the above, anyone being transferred anywhere is advised not to leave in the quarters being vacated: clothes, linens, personal effects, items created by the person himself, and any traces of organic matter—hair, nails, saliva, semen, used bandages, Band-Aids, or handkerchiefs.

  I didn’t sleep that night. I listened to the breathing of those who did and stared into the darkness of the ceiling until it started lightening up and revealing familiar cracks. Then I thought that this was the last time I was seeing them and counted them all again. Then the dial of the big clock on the wall became discernible, but I purposefully avoided looking at it. This was the most unbearable night I’d ever spent in the House. By the wake-up bell I was already half-dressed. It took me all of ten minutes to gather my things. I packed a change of underwear, pajamas, and textbooks, making sure not to take anything that was bearing a number. Just as I had suspected, Shark did not appear at the assigned time. The group left for breakfast without me. They returned and wheeled off to class, and still he hadn’t come. Not at ten, not at eleven, not at twelve.

  By half past twelve I had gnawed off all my fingernails, wheeled around the dorm a couple hundred times, and realized that I was going to crack soon. I took out Tabaqui’s “migrant’s guide,” reread it, then stripped the linens off the bed. I packed them too, then gathered all tissues in the vicinity of my bed and nightstand. Stopped my watch and buried it at the bottom of the bag. Took the cigarettes out of the secret place, lit up, and started figuring out how to assemble a plant collection from materials at hand. That’s when Shark arrived, with a surly Case in tow, for help with carrying, and Homer, for help with seeing off. Homer was not able to perform his duties with dignity, though. The cigarette proved too much for him. He bolted as soon as he saw it. He
didn’t even say good-bye. Shark ignored the cigarette but inquired what the hell did I take off the linens for.

  “They’re fresh,” I said. “Only changed yesterday. Why use an extra set?”

  He looked at me like I was mental and grumbled something about “those Pheasant tricks,” even though he himself had come down on me yesterday for using the word. I told him I could leave the linens behind if it was such a big deal. He told me to shut up.

  Case maneuvered my wheelchair, bumping it against the beds, and wheeled me out to the hallway, where he entrusted me into Shark’s care and returned for my bag. Then Shark was rolling the wheelchair while Case was lugging the bag. We covered the familiar ground quickly and then, no matter how I tried to catch a glimpse of something identifiable, I couldn’t recognize anything. It was as if all the drawings and markers had changed since last night. I missed both the Second and the Coffeepot and realized it only when we stopped in front of the door with the enormous 4 outlined on it in chalk.

  THE HOUSE

  INTERLUDE

  The House sits on the outskirts of town. The neighborhood is called the Comb. The long buildings of the projects here are arranged in jagged rows, with empty cement squares between them—the intended playgrounds for the young Combers. The teeth of the comb are white, they stare with many eyes, and they all look just the same. In places where they haven’t sprouted yet there are the fenced vacant lots. The piles of debris from the houses already knocked down, nesting grounds for rats and stray dogs, are much more appealing to the young Combers than their own backyards, the spaces between the teeth.

  In the no-man’s-land between the two worlds—that of the teeth and of the dumps—is the House. They call it Gray House. It is old, closer in age to the dumps, the graveyards of its contemporaries. It stands alone, as the other houses shun it, and it doesn’t look like a tooth, since it is not struggling upward. Three stories high, facing the highway, it too has a backyard—a narrow rectangle cordoned off by chicken wire. It was white when built. It has since become gray, and yellowish from the other side, toward the back. It is bristling with aerials, it is strewn with cables, it is raining down plaster and weeping from the cracks. Additions and sheds cling to it, along with doghouses and garbage bins, all of it in the back. The facade is bare and somber, just the way it is supposed to be.