The Gray House

by Mariam Petrosyan

  Humpback, Blind, and Wolf were sitting side by side on a bed. The wall stretched before them in its drying splendor, and Grasshopper again became sad that Blind could not see it. Elk covered him with the blanket, and Grasshopper snuggled in the warm burrow. The voices rolled over him, bubbling indistinctly, but he couldn’t make out the words. He was sinking into sleep but managed to call out.

  “Blind . . .”

  Someone smelling of paint appeared silently by his side.

  “You know what,” Grasshopper whispered. “The dinosaur . . . It’s raised off the wall a bit. You could see it when it dries up . . . If you touch it . . .”

  The paint-smelling apparition answered something, but Grasshopper did not hear it. He was asleep.

  The next morning, Wolf changed the lightbulbs for brighter ones. They made shades for two of them out of colored craft paper, and Wolf covered them with Chinese characters. The third one occupied the shade Beauty had been washing. After Beauty left, Humpback washed it all over again, but Beauty didn’t know that and so every time he walked under it his face was illuminated by a smile, itself like a lightbulb under the dark bangs.

  They guarded the room in shifts all day. The wall was almost completely dry now. The Stuffage Pack was suspiciously quiet. From time to time one of them would sneak out and shuffle outside the door, trying to peek through the lock. Or they would knock and run away before someone could open. Wolf and Grasshopper were on guard during lunchtime. Wolf sat on the windowsill looking out into the yard. Grasshopper lay on his bed. The hamster scratched in its bowl. The room on the other side of the wall was silent. Then someone knocked. Wolf had been jumping up and down all morning, opening the door only to find emptiness behind it and hear the sound of running feet, so he didn’t even move.

  “You’d think they’d give it a rest during lunch, at least,” he said.

  The knocking resumed. Grasshopper got up.

  “May I?” a squeaky voice said, and a big-eared head insinuated itself into the crack.

  Grasshopper closed his eyes. Then he opened them again.

  “This can’t be a wheeler?” he said.

  “It is,” the visitor said. “Amazing, huh?”

  And he rolled into the room.

  Stinker the wheeler was known far and wide. Grasshopper had heard a lot about him, even though he’d never met him in person. Those who had, all confirmed that Stinker was the nastiest wheeler in the House. The walking juniors considered all wheelers whiny and nasty, but even the other wheelers had branded Stinker as such. That’s probably because he was. The mere sight of him made seasoned counselors wistfully count the years remaining until retirement. His roommates harbored secret desires to throttle him in his sleep. Stinker was nine, but he’d already managed to pack a lot of achievements into his life. His fame, or rather infamy, preceded him.

  “I came to have a look,” Stinker said. “Are you going to throw me out?”

  “Look,” Wolf said, “if you’re really interested.”

  Stinker stared at the wall. Grasshopper and Wolf stared at him. Stinker was small and ugly looking, with incongruously big ears and round eyes. His pink shirt sported greasy stains. Grasshopper had never seen such dirty hands. Still, it was nice of the wheeler to have come all the way here to look at their wall.

  “Like it?” Grasshopper asked.

  Stinker turned away from the wall.

  “Dunno. Maybe I do. And maybe I don’t. Are you a separate pack now? With your own separate room?”

  He knows already, Grasshopper thought with surprise.

  “We’re not a pack,” Wolf said. “We are Poxy Sissies. We spread disease. If someone asks, you tell them that.”

  “Oooh!” Stinker’s large eyes lit up with excitement. He now resembled an owl out to hunt. “That’s a good one. I’ll remember that.” He looked around. “You are only using five beds. Sort of too few of you for this whole room.”

  “So? Quite enough for disease-spreading.”

  “That’s true.” Stinker picked bashfully at his dirty hand. “Here’s what I thought . . . Could you maybe use one more Poxy Sissy? I’d volunteer. I can spread disease too. I’m really good at that.”

  Grasshopper looked at Wolf. Wolf looked at Grasshopper.

  He’s going to agree, Grasshopper thought, horrified. He might not know what Stinker is. They held him in the Sepulcher for too long.

  But it looked like Wolf did know.

  “We don’t need anyone else,” he said.

  Apparently this was the answer Stinker expected. But he continued to stare at Grasshopper. His round owlish eyes were too big. They seemed boundless if you looked into them for a while. They glowed with a strange inner light, drawing you in, like a sky bristling with stars. Grasshopper looked for a bit longer than was safe.

  “You can come,” his unwieldy lips said by themselves. “If you want to.”

  Stinker blinked, and the glow of the faraway stars was extinguished. He wiped the nose with the back of his dirty hand. Then sniffled and exposed the picket fence of his sharpish teeth.

  “I’ll just go grab my things. Won’t be a minute.”

  He turned around and rolled out. Surprisingly quickly. The door slammed behind him. His victory song filled the hallway. Grasshopper took a step backward, staggered, and sat on his bed.

  “What have I just done?” he said.

  “Oh, nothing much,” Wolf said, still looking at the door. “Only invited the most famous dirtbag in the House to live with us.”

  Grasshopper was ready to cry.

  “Wolf. I swear, I didn’t want to. I don’t know what happened. He was looking and looking, and I said . . .”

  “It’s all right. Don’t worry.” Wolf sat down next to him. “When he comes back we’ll just tell him we changed our minds. By a majority of votes. I never agreed to anything, after all.”

  Grasshopper buried his face in the pillow. He felt awful. This most horrible, nasty person, the nastiest ever, and he’d invited him here, into his home, his very own room. It was like he wanted to spoil everything.

  The noise of many returning feet rolled down the corridor, gradually subsiding as their owners filed into the rooms. The Stuffage Pack thundered by, roaring, banging on their door as they ran. Then Humpback entered, with a big packet of food. Blind came next, carrying two bottles of milk. Beauty timidly brought up the rear, and his hands were empty.

  “We got hot dogs,” Humpback started brightly, then stumbled. “What happened? Why are you sitting all miserable like that?”

  “Stinker the wheeler’s just been here,” Wolf explained. “And Grasshopper said he could move in with us. It just happened. He didn’t want to.”

  “Stinker?!” Humpback and Blind exclaimed in unison.

  Grasshopper stood looking down at the floor.

  “We could say it was a joke,” Humpback suggested. “Say that Grasshopper was joking. You were joking, weren’t you?”

  Grasshopper was doing his best to fight back tears.

  “We’ll think of something,” Wolf said uncertainly. “Maybe he was joking himself. Maybe he wouldn’t come anyway. This has never happened, for a wheeler to join the walkers. We’d just say we said it by accident. Whatever. Just to make him go away.”

  Beauty was looking forlornly up at the ceiling. At his lightbulb. Or, rather, at his lampshade.

  They sat in silence for a while. The food was going stale on the floor. Grasshopper, with his eyes closed, was picturing Stinker. How he was packing his things. Opening all of his secret places in front of everybody. Telling the other wheelers that he was moving to the colorful room. And they were laughing at him, not believing him. “Who needs you there?” they would say. “The walkers were joking.” And Stinker would continue to pack.

  Grasshopper imagined this so vividly it almost knocked the breath out of him. He opened his eyes.

  “No,” he said. “I can’t do this. I told him he could come. He knows it’s not a joke. He’ll run here with all of
his stuff . . .”

  Grasshopper went silent. There was something in his throat that wasn’t letting him continue. He buried his face in his knees, and the knees immediately became wet.

  “Hey. Stop this,” Wolf said. “We are going to talk to him ourselves. What’s come over you?”

  Humpback sniffled loudly into his clenched fist. Grasshopper lifted up his face, tears streaming down, and looked at Wolf.

  “You are going to talk to him and throw him out. And I’m going to sit silently and pretend it has nothing to do with me? He believed me. Me, not you. And now it turns out my word means nothing. What does that make me?”

  Wolf looked away.

  “Let’s do it the way he wants,” Blind said. “Let him keep his word. Just don’t let him cry. By the way, this Stinker guy, is he heavy like a tank?”

  Grasshopper didn’t have enough time to be surprised by Blind’s words. They all heard the strange grinding noise and jumped up together. The door flew open. There was a trunk looming behind it.

  “Help!” came the voice from the other side. “I can’t push it in alone!”

  Wolf and Humpback hauled in the trunk. They had to turn it lengthwise. It was followed by Stinker, hugging a bloated backpack and clad in a parka. A striped knit hat with a pom-pom on top crowned his head.

  “Here! I brought you all this,” he proclaimed. “Look . . .”

  Then Stinker saw Grasshopper’s tearstained face and went red. Very slowly, from the tips of his enormous ears down.

  “Oh,” he said and pulled off the multicolored hat. “Oh. I see.”

  “You see what?” Wolf said gruffly. “Squeeze in and close the door. Or the entire Stuffage is going to be here any minute.”

  Humpback went around the trunk and knocked on it.

  “What do you have here? A matching furniture set?”

  Beauty peeked inside.

  “Oh wow. There’s like a bulldozer in there,” he said.

  “That’s not a bulldozer! It’s a juice maker,” Stinker said, visibly hurt. “I made it myself. A very useful appliance to have around.”

  Grasshopper wiped his runny nose on his knee and smiled.

  “What about this?” Humpback fished out a scary-looking steel contraption.

  “A bear trap,” Stinker said proudly. “My own design as well.”

  “Also a useful appliance to have around,” Blind said acidly.

  Wolf and Humpback were diving inside the trunk, producing more and more stuff. Beauty was afraid to touch any of it, lest he break something. Blind examined everything with his fingers before setting it down on the floor. Stinker was providing a running commentary.

  “Kettle. Photographic trays. Tool set. Stuffed horned viper. Portable coatrack. Guitar . . .”

  “Wait,” Wolf interrupted. “You can play guitar?”

  Stinker scratched himself and looked at the ceiling.

  “Not really, no.”

  “Why do you have it, then?”

  “It was a parting gift. From former roommates.”

  “Ah. You mean you took all you could. Was there anything left at all?”

  Stinker sighed.

  “Nightstands. And beds, too.”

  He stared at the floor with a guilty look on his face. Grasshopper and Humpback laughed.

  “I see,” Wolf said. “So in the morning they’re going to come for the trunk.”

  “No, they won’t,” Stinker said firmly. “They wouldn’t dare. I warned them that I’d move right back if they tried.”

  Humpback slipped on the bear trap and landed in the salad bowl. Grasshopper doubled over on the bed.

  “Hey! Hey,” Wolf said. “I’m not allowed to laugh like that!”

  Then all was hysterics and moans. Even Blind was laughing. Stinker squeaked loudest of all.

  “Move right back! Blackmailer! Former roommate!”

  “You haven’t seen all of it!” Stinker yelled. “There’s still a lot left!”

  They yelped, shaking the beds with their laughter.

  Suddenly Wolf straightened up and said, “Shhh! Hear that?”

  They stopped and listened to silence. The silence of Stuffage listening intently to them laughing.

  Stinker couldn’t play guitar, but he could play the harmonica. He knew nineteen songs, happy as well as sad, and he played them all. And the trunk did contain a lot more fun stuff. For example, a jumbled mass of wires in which Humpback managed to entangle himself.

  “Security system,” Stinker explained. “With alarm.”

  “Great,” Wolf said. “Certainly useful to have around. For us I’d say even indispensable. Let’s connect it.”

  The door was soon crisscrossed by wires so thickly it was scary to look at. Then it turned out that the alarm didn’t work.

  “No problem,” Stinker said. “Probably a break in the current somewhere. I’ll have a look later.”

  Grasshopper took Stinker’s failures personally. But the security system was so far the only major setback. The trap definitely worked. They found out when Blind stepped in it. The juice maker worked too. They installed the coatrack in the corner, where it accepted the weight of two jackets and one backpack. Stinker was knocking himself out making a good impression. He didn’t miss any opportunity to show that he was capable of doing everything by himself, and to prove it, he would flop out of the wheelchair and crawl briskly around the room. He demonstrated his skills at climbing on the bed and back into the wheelchair, and even attempted to scale the windowsill, but crashed down halfway. He rubbed the mark on his chin, and his eyes looking at Grasshopper seemed to say: Can you see how hard I’m trying?

  Wolf went to his bed with the guitar and tried to play it, without much success. Beauty sat mesmerized before the juice maker, regarding his own reflection in its shiny sides. Blind was listening to Stuffage, sitting by the wall with his injured leg held aloft.

  When Stinker finally wheeled off to the bathroom, assuring everybody and everything that he needed absolutely no help with “things like that,” Humpback said to Wolf, “This Stinker is not a bad guy at all. Why is everyone picking on him? They all say there’s no one nastier in the whole House. And he’s really nice.”

  “Yeah,” Wolf said, “he’s fine. A cute little baby who’s a bit into blackmail. Caught Blind in a trap, fell down from the window, and by a complete coincidence gobbled four of our hot dogs.”

  “He was hungry,” Grasshopper interjected. “He didn’t go to lunch.”

  “I didn’t either,” Wolf sighed. “On the other hand, if no one comes here to claim this guitar by tomorrow, I’ll personally feed him two more lunches.”

  Grasshopper exhaled. It’s lucky that Stinker thought of grabbing that guitar, he thought. And it will be lucky if they don’t come for it.

  “I wish I had an orange,” said Beauty plaintively. “Or a lemon. Something squeezable.”

  He gingerly touched the switch on the juicer and jerked his hand back. He was very afraid of breaking it. Everything he touched broke, for some reason.

  “Sportsman is having a fight with Siamese,” Blind said. “They stole his magazine with the naked ladies.”

  “That’s sad,” Wolf said. “The moral fiber of that boy leaves much to be desired. You are a regular listening device, Blind. Do they know about Stinker yet?”

  Blind shook his hair.

  “No. But they did hear the harmonica.”

  Stinker came back. He parked by the door and started fiddling with the wires, whistling a tune softly.

  “Where can I get an orange?” Beauty asked. “Anybody?”

  “Where can I get a guitar tutorial?” Wolf said. “You guys think Elk might have one?”

  The piercing wail of the alarm shook them all badly. Beauty pressed his hands against his ears. The alarm raged on for two minutes, then silence returned.

  “It’s working,” Stinker said happily, staring with his shameless round eyes.

  Leaving for breakfast the next morning, they left t
he security system armed and also installed the disguised trap by the door.

  “Maybe we’ll find someone in it when we get back,” Humpback said.

  The presence of Stinker at their table caused a furor in the canteen. Sportsman pointedly got up and went to sit farther away. His pack followed. The long junior table now had a neutral zone in the middle. Even seniors noticed it.

  “Look, the squirts are splitting up,” Boar, one of the seniors, said.

  “The little shits are growing,” Lame replied dismissively. “Into big shits. Just like us.”

  The juniors overheard this exchange, straightened proudly, and blushed. The seniors just compared us to themselves!

  The wheelers were regarding Stinker sulkily. But he happily absorbed the attention, all the while creating a pigsty around his plate.

  On the way back to the room, Grasshopper stopped before the message board. Separated at Birth. Showing this evening. Both parts. So there wouldn’t be anybody in the Tenth except Ancient. Grasshopper ran to catch up with the rest of them.

  Stinker asked permission to draw something on the wall. Wolf dug out the cans of paint and showed him an empty corner. Stinker labored long and hard. He first drew everything in pencil, then used paint—there was nary a peep from his corner all the way till lunch, save for doleful sighs and scratching, representing the throes of inspiration.

  Wolf managed to procure the guitar tutorial. He was studying it very closely, but to Grasshopper it looked like he couldn’t quite concentrate on what was before him. Beauty had wheedled an orange from someone and was now sitting in front of the juicer, not daring to switch it on. Grasshopper and Humpback had mounted a typewriter on the nightstand—another gift of the trunk, which no one except Grasshopper took any interest in. Grasshopper realized immediately that this was something he really needed. Hitting a lettered key with the finger of his prosthetic was much easier than trying to draw that same letter so that someone else could guess which one it was. Pens always slipped out of the artificial fingers, and the letters came out all angular and broken. When Grasshopper saw the typewriter, he perked up and asked for it to be placed on his nightstand.