The Gray House

by Mariam Petrosyan

  “You think Gaby made it up about being pregnant?” she says.

  “How would I know? If pregnant girls behave like brainless berserkers, I guess she didn’t.”

  The blackberries of her eyes seem to be tearing up, because I look at them through the curtain of water.

  “What about the others?”

  “They jumped right in. Like it was the plan all along.”

  She shoves my shirt into the stream, and the razor case falls down on the tiles. Ginger picks it up and looks at it intently.

  “Tell me. If it were guys going at you, would you have taken this out?”

  “I guess. I’m not sure. I always carry it around, and then always forget to get it out in a tight spot. Corpse, now he doesn’t need to even think about it. The razor finds its way into his hand by itself. I don’t know how he does it.”

  “Why didn’t you use it? Either of you?”

  I push the hair away from my eyes so that I can see her when she says that.

  “You mean to scare them? I don’t think it would’ve worked.”

  Somewhere outside, Sheriff howls for all the “clowns” to present themselves for Sepulchral ministrations.

  Ginger rinses off my shirt under the shower. Her own is almost as wet. Shorts too.

  “You have to understand. They could have killed you. Easily.” Having said that, she looks me straight in the eye for the first time. “It wasn’t mercy that made them stop when they did.”

  “Oh, I got that. I just don’t understand why.”

  “Yeah, you don’t.”

  I continue to hold up the damaged hand, away from the walls and from my body. Because of the constant worry that I might bump it against something, it’s hard for me to concentrate on the conversation. That, and Sheriff banging on the stall doors.

  Ginger is right, but not entirely. I did understand something back there in the Coffeepot, except I can’t quite pin it down. That happens a lot. The knowledge sits inside you somewhere, and you don’t notice it until something shakes you up, and then you understand it’s exactly what you’ve been waiting for. But you still won’t know why that is.

  This annoying thought keeps chasing itself around my head, that if not for me there might never have been this new Law. Even though it doesn’t much matter now.

  The door slides to the side, admitting Viking’s head.

  “Everyone went to the Sepulcher,” he reports, then cracks a dirty smirk. “I’m not interrupting anything?”

  Ginger decides to walk me over. It’s peace and quiet in the hallway. We stumble on, leaving puddles in our wake. Big ones and small ones. Ginger wrung out my shirt before slapping it on me, but the hem is raining water again, both pant legs are streaming, and my sneakers squelch lustily. This is the first time I’ve looked like that in the full light of day. A regular water sprite. Ginger isn’t much better.

  “What do you think is going on right now in the Sepulcher?” I say, imagining our triumphal entrance.

  “If you think I’m going in there, forget it.”

  I’m grabbed and squeezed at the edges to wring off some more water.

  “I hate public displays of all kinds,” Ginger says, getting up from her knees.

  “Then you should’ve changed my clothes. And if you’re really serious about this, how can you live alongside Jackal? Did you see his ripped-out-hair collection? Now don’t tell me it’s not him you’re living with. He is there wherever any of them is.”

  No answer. She doesn’t like talking about the Fourth with me. I don’t know why. She just doesn’t.

  My purple shirt not only drips, but also stains. I am covered in spots the color of dawn. Or of baboon’s butt. I’ve never had problems with associative thinking, so looking at them I picture myself bleeding out, and then Solomon. These images always go together.

  Solomon, my very own illicit basement-dwelling Rat. The pudgy wobbling cheeks, the haunted look, and his damn asthma. One and a half candles until the day after tomorrow, a flashlight, and a stack of newspapers. Good thing I hauled some grub down to him last night. He’s probably OK for today. I am not going to the basement with my hand in this condition, no way. And don’t tell me about rats and their behavior. I used to keep a real rat. Not one of those white ones, no, I mean a genuine authentic gray. You can go to sleep with it. Just feed it out of your hand, that’s all. No tricks. But a human—that’s entirely different. Feed him or not, but never come close, especially when not healthy.

  What was I thinking when I agreed to that? Is it that I’m compassionate, or simply stupid? It’s a great feeling when your worst enemy is dependent upon you for absolutely everything. When he lives the life of a lowly rodent, never seeing the light of day. There’s the answer, I guess. I’m enjoying it.

  “Why the long face?” Ginger says. “You were looking much happier just now.”

  “Thinking about my moral fiber.”

  She nods. Not a single word to make me feel better. Is it because she agrees that there’s a reason for the face elongating? I guess. I should keep quiet, because whatever else, she’s going to give it to me straight if I ask. “Having your respect is all that matters.” I’m never telling her that. You just don’t say things like that out loud. Even to someone who’s a dozen times closer to you than a sister. I’m talking to her too much as it is. She knows everything about me, and I know almost nothing about her. Because she never discusses her business with anyone. Ever since the time that she was teaching me not to whine when it hurt. She is the older half of our tandem, and the older sisters do, of course, wipe the noses of the younger brothers, but when it’s time to cry on someone’s shoulder they run to others. It rankles immensely, but there’s nothing that can be done about that. She looked after me, so I am forever a baby to her, only grown up a little. The month in my favor that separates our birthdays is a silly joke of the calendar. Tyranny, if you think about it. I will probably never know if she cries on Noble’s shoulder or not. I’d like her to have a shoulder like that, for crying, and I’d like to know that Noble is not just another infant for her to care about, but whatever’s going on between them is none of my concern. Or I might start stomping my little feet in a jealous pique, pawing at her shorts, whining. Or whatever she imagines me doing. Heaven forbid I’d find out what that is.

  “I’m off. Don’t sit in the Sepulcher chairs unless you want your backside kicked by the Spiders.”

  She turns around and leaves. Wet like a squirrel out of water.

  I shout after her, “Yes, chief!”

  And rush in the Sepulchral door.

  Spiders detest Rats, especially when the latter are wet and numerous. Which is why we get treated out of turn, and expeditiously.

  Sheriff stomps and swears, “He golden teeth aflame.” I leave with my hand in a cast and a handful of pills in my pocket. I can feel them doing me good already, even before I’ve taken any. I’m the only such freak in the whole House, getting a cheerful boost out of the Sepulcher. Yes, I know I’m perverted, but what can I do? Not that I want to. My life, almost all of it, has been spent inside it. I sometimes even feel like I was born there. So all that high-minded stuff about blessed home and hearth—for me it’s always been more about the Sepulcher, not the House itself. I don’t exactly make it a point to come here often, but when it happens, it happens. I also heal quickly, so I have no fear of this place, unlike some who go to pieces every time they’re anywhere near it. It probably should have been the other way around, because there isn’t anyone who’s been split open and stitched back up more times than me, but human nature is a strange beast and logic doesn’t figure into it.

  I’m not sure who’s staying for observations from the other packs, but we lose only Hybrid. Corpse and I are the first out the door. Must be our fame, that of the cheerful undead who are ready to party even in their graves, preceding us. Being an exceptional individual has its privileges.

  We take a detour into the common crapper and compare the loot. His haul of pil
ls is almost as big as mine. It’s not every day you get this many, even after a major surgery.

  “Cheer up, man,” I tell him. “There’s an entire fortune here, if you spend it wisely.”

  “But I’ve got nothing that hurts,” he says. “Strange, huh?”

  I’m full of envy. Because I do have things that hurt, and how. I’m not sure I’ll be able to hold out.

  “I’m surprised you haven’t stolen more,” Corpse says. “Oh, right, the hand.”

  I don’t answer, because I’ve just noticed something really troubling. It’s lying in wait under one of the sinks. The Phoenix plastic bag. Sneaked behind the pipe and probably imagines itself well hidden. As if that acid-blue color could ever blend into the background. Those ghastly wadded bags hunt me constantly and everywhere. There is no more disgusting sound than the rustling of a bag that’s creeping after you. Supposedly it’s the wind pushing them. Yeah, right. Wind has nothing to do with it. I mean, if there is wind they behave even more brazenly, but they can ambush you even when it’s totally still. Ever since that time when a particularly dusty and sticky member of the species attacked me from above, parachuting onto my face and clinging to it in the manner of a carnival mask, I’ve been very touchy on the subject.

  Their favorite gathering spot is under the porch. That’s where they usually chase each other around like tumbleweeds, crackling merrily, and that’s where they prepare the ambushes, because the last thing a person coming out on the porch expects is a bag flying out from behind the banisters, ready to latch on to any exposed body part. They don’t quit, even when swatted down. The only sure way of fighting them is to nail them to the ground with a stone, no easy task since they’re very quick to flee and repulsive to the touch.

  And the white-and-blue Phoenixes that have taken over the House and its environs, because that chain is the principal source of toothpaste, creams, deodorant, and shit like that, are the most insidious. I recognize them by their rustle. It’s somehow louder than any other kind. And that’s why, upon noticing one of them hiding under the sink, I stop listening to Corpse’s mutterings and prepare for battle.

  “Damn,” Corpse says, apparently tracing my gaze. “Enemy at the gate?”

  I nod silently. The bag chooses this very moment to attempt a furtive feint, but freezes when it realizes it overestimated its chances. Corpse and I shrink back.

  “Wait here,” Corpse whispers, reaching for the mop by the door. “Don’t worry, I’ve got this.”

  Hunched, on his tiptoes, he hobbles toward the sink.

  The bag stays put. Corpse sneaks at it like a warrior with a lance, he sneaks, sneaks some more, then lurches forward and pins the bag to the floor with the mop. It emits a desperate crunching crackle.

  I turn away.

  “Done,” Corpse says, raising the mop with the speared Phoenix. “It’s finished!”

  We put it to the torch, dump the ashes in the toilet, and flush thrice. Time for the victory smoke.

  “Thanks,” I say. “I’m forever in your debt.”

  “Don’t mention it,” Corpse says, waving away my gratitude. “I hate them too. Especially the ones that go flying at night.”

  He French-kisses the cigarette and slides down the wall, turning greener and greener. No, it’s not the glasses, since I don’t have them on. It’s just that Corpse has this delicate tint to his skin, and every little thing changes it for the worse. Smoking, for one. They told him long ago that his first drag was going to be his last. So every day he keeps experimenting, getting more and more pissed at those liars.

  But we have a deal, me and him. On the day that I appear to him in his dreams, he quits smoking. Except when that happens it would most likely be too late, so it’s just empty words to calm my nerves. You see, I have a peculiar habit of visiting the soon-to-be-dead in their sleep. I seem to come to them and not really do anything except sit silently on the edge of the bed. And soon after that, they die. I don’t really like talking about it, to save myself from the assorted crazies. It took a real effort to get rid of my old nick. I console myself by thinking that as nasty habits go, this one isn’t the worst I know.

  “Where you heading?” Corpse says drowsily.

  “Vulture’s place. Going to wheedle something green off him. For Hybrid. So he can eat it in peace. You’re supposed to bring gifts when visiting the afflicted.”

  “Oh,” Corpse bleats. “Good deeds. Sweet, sweet, sweet. And Spiders are like, ‘Of course, babe, eat all you want, you need the vitamins.’ Perfect!”

  He shakes his blue dreadlocks, quaking with laughter. I bet he’s going to fall asleep right there on the tiles as soon as I’m gone. It’s bad for him too, so he never misses an opportunity.

  So I go out into the world, carrying the cast in front of me like a tray of my own bones. A handsome specimen of a man, getting handsomer by the day. The zit on my right cheek will have to be scratched by the left hand for a while. The drying soles of the sneakers have developed these unpleasant ridges, biting into my feet.

  On my way I take a peek in the Den. And regret it. I completely forgot about the cleanup, and here it is, or rather its aftermath. The entire floor is covered in slimy gunk, and the trash piles are still where they’ve always been, except now they’re damp right through and even more revolting. The crate-table is in the middle, upside down, stuck to the above-mentioned unmentionables, and the prevailing scent is that of puke, even though the bulk of the puking has been performed elsewhere.

  No Rats in sight except for Whitebelly, rubbing a sponge over a spot the size of a football. He’s almost all the way through to the floorboards.

  “Good boy,” I say to him, by way of encouraging his diligence, but immediately realize that he’s got earphones on, so he can’t hear a damn thing.

  What was the idea with that cleanup anyway? They’re nothing but trouble, that at least is obvious.

  RALPH

  Once every six years, the wall separating the House from the world sprang a leak. Ralph had observed it three times already, and still he couldn’t make himself think of graduation as a natural occurrence in the order of things. That the Outsides could suddenly permeate the House—that the House could bleed its creatures, who until then appeared joined inseparably with it, into the Outsides—was not something you could accept and get used to. The more experienced counselors passionately loathed the pregraduation term, and their newly hired colleagues had to spend a couple of years listening to their horror stories. “If you haven’t been there for a graduation, you haven’t seen anything.” Ralph had been lucky (or unlucky, take your pick) to have arrived in the House shortly before a graduation, and so wasn’t a target for such remarks. He was one of those who “had been there” from the start. A fresh conscript finding himself immediately on the front lines and in the thick of battle. Even though all he could later recall from that, his first graduation, was an indeterminate feeling, mostly a result of the parents’ all-out assault.

  Just as there weren’t two students who were alike, there weren’t any parents who were alike. But still counselors placed most of them in two broad categories: Managers and Contacters. Managers maintained active communication with their children, made regular visits on assigned days, and pestered counselors with phone calls. Contacters appeared only in the days before graduation. The rest fell somewhere between the two extremes, and were unworthy of a separate classification.

  Contacters’ visits coincided with the arrival of supervisory committees, fire and sanitary inspectors, and all and sundry child-welfare agencies (it was always a surprise how many of those there actually were in existence). Every six years the counselors were reminded that there was an authority above them, and that the authority was very interested in what they had been up to. Their work was checked and rechecked. They had to produce reports and reviews, duty-shift timesheets and exhaustive evaluations of each and every student. All of that was then collated, examined, and cross-referenced. The fire inspectors tested the extinguishe
rs and quizzed the counselors on proper procedures. Those who could not quickly rattle off the sequence of steps to be undertaken in case of a fire were sent to remedial training. The medical inspectors took over the hospital wing and turned it inside out. The sanitary inspectors went through the kitchens with a fine-tooth comb. The Contacters demanded advice, immediate attention, and, often, first aid. The Managers demanded respect. Some inspectors, after going away, returned for the second and even third go-around. By the end of the month the principal was a human wreck.

  Then summer break came, allowing the counselors some time to recuperate, and then they were immediately thrown into the pool of freshly admitted six-year-olds. Ralph considered the system of handling admissions and graduations that had been adopted in the House completely idiotic. He could not understand why the juniors, in the graduation year, were not being sent away from the House earlier. Even by itself, the House losing half of its inhabitants was a shock to them, and that they were allowed to witness it happening Ralph considered inexcusable. Also that in the summer camps they received an unlimited license to discuss what had happened, with no classes to distract them and almost no counselors to supervise them. And that, upon return, they were faced with the new batch of students, their successors, a constant reminder that soon they too would share the fate of the seniors, because the seniors were now them. It was no surprise they didn’t have any love for the juniors, never cared about them or helped them with anything. It was also no surprise that they never forgave the counselors their betrayal and never trusted them again. What was surprising was the abject adoration that the juniors had for those disgusting youths. Seniors could ignore them or treat them like dirt, the squirts didn’t mind at all. They absorbed everything seniors had, including the dread before the graduation, and that dread by degrees became a part of the fabric of their lives. A sign of the coming maturity.