"A good thing,” his wife echoed.
"Pretty soon,” Aunt Amy said, from the stove, “there won't be any more new things. We'll have found everything there is to find. Goodness, that'll be too bad—"
"Amy!"
"Well—” her pale eyes were shallow and fixed, a sign of her recurrent vagueness. “It will be kind of a shame—no new things—"
"Don't talk like that,” Mom said, trembling. “Amy, be quiet!"
"It's good,” said Dad, in the loud, familiar, wanting-to-be-overheard tone of voice. “Such talk is good. It's okay, honey—don't you see? It's good for Amy to talk any way she wants. It's good for her to feel bad. Everything's good. Everything has to be good..."
Anthony's mother was pale. And so was Aunt Amy, the peril of the moment had suddenly penetrated the clouds surrounding her mind. Sometimes it was difficult to handle words so that they might not prove disastrous. You just never knew. There were so many things it was wise not to say, or even think—but remonstration for saying or thinking them might be just as bad, if Anthony heard and decided to do anything about it. You could just never tell what Anthony was liable to do.
Everything had to be good. Had to be fine just as it was, even if it wasn't. Always. Because any change might be worse. So terribly much worse.
"Oh, my goodness, yes, of course it's good,” Mom said. “You talk any way you want to, Amy, and it's just fine. Of course, you want to remember that some ways are better than others..."
Aunt Amy stirred the peas, fright in her pale eyes.
"Oh, yes,” she said. “But I don't feel like talking right now. It ... it's good that I don't feel like talking."
Dad said tiredly, smiling, “I'm going out and wash up."
* * * *
They started arriving around eight o'clock. By that time, Mom and Aunt Amy had the big table in the dining room set, and two more tables off to the side. The candles were burning, and the chairs situated, and Dad had a big fire going in the fireplace.
The first to arrive were the Sipichs, John and Mary. John wore his best suit, and was well-scrubbed and pink-faced after his day in McIntyre's pasture. The suit was neatly pressed, but getting threadbare at elbows and cuffs. Old McIntyre was working on a loom, designing it out of schoolbooks, but so far it was slow going. McIntyre was a capable man with wood and tools, but a loom was a big order when you couldn't get metal parts. McIntyre had been one of the ones who, at first, had wanted to try to get Anthony to make things the villagers needed, like clothes and canned goods and medical supplies and gasoline. Since then, he felt that what had happened to the whole Terrance family and Joe Kinney was his fault, and he worked hard trying to make it up to the rest of them. And since then, no one had tried to get Anthony to do anything.
Mary Sipich was a small, cheerful woman in a simple dress. She immediately set about helping Mom and Aunt Amy put the finishing touches on the dinner.
The next arrivals were the Smiths and the Dunns, who lived right next to each other down the road, only a few yards from the nothingness. They drove up in the Smiths’ wagon, drawn by their old horse.
Then the Reillys showed up, from across the darkened wheatfield, and the evening really began. Pat Reilly sat down at the big upright in the front room, and began to play from the popular sheet music on the rack. He played softly, as expressively as he could—and nobody sang. Anthony liked piano playing a whole lot, but not singing; often he would come up from the basement, or down from the attic, or just come, and sit on top of the piano, nodding his head as Pat played Lover or Boulevard of Broken Dreams or Night and Day. He seemed to prefer ballads, sweet-sounding songs—but the one time somebody had started to sing, Anthony had looked over from the top of the piano and done something that made everybody afraid of singing from then on. Later, they'd decided that the piano was what Anthony had heard first, before anybody had ever tried to sing, and now anything else added to it didn't sound right and distracted him from his pleasure.
So, every television night, Pat would play the piano, and that was the beginning of the evening. Wherever Anthony was, the music would make him happy, and put him in a good mood, and he would know that they were gathering for television and waiting for him.
By eight-thirty everybody had shown up, except for the seventeen children and Mrs. Soames who was off watching them in the schoolhouse at the far end of town. The children of Peaksville were never, never allowed near the Fremont house—not since little Fred Smith had tried to play with Anthony on a dare. The younger children weren't even told about Anthony. The others had mostly forgotten about him, or were told that he was a nice, nice goblin but they must never go near him.
Dan and Ethel Hollis came late, and Dan walked in not suspecting a thing. Pat Reilly had played the piano until his hands ached—he'd worked pretty hard with them today—and now he got up, and everybody gathered around to wish Dan Hollis a happy birthday.
"Well, I'll be darned,” Dan grinned. “This is swell. I wasn't expecting this at all ... gosh, this is swell!"
They gave him his presents—mostly things they had made by hand, though some were things that people had possessed as their own and now gave him as his. John Sipich gave him a watch charm, hand-carved out of a piece of hickory wood. Dan's watch had broken down a year or so ago, and there was nobody in the village who knew how to fix it, but he still carried it around because it had been his grandfather's and was a fine old heavy thing of gold and silver. He attached the charm to the chain, while everybody laughed and said John had done a nice job of carving. Then Mary Sipich gave him a knitted necktie, which he put on, removing the one he'd worn.
The Reillys gave him a little box they had made, to keep things in. They didn't say what things, but Dan said he'd keep his personal jewelry in it. The Reillys had made it out of a cigar box, carefully peeled of its paper and lined on the inside with velvet. The outside had been polished, and carefully if not expertly carved by Pat—but his carving got complimented too. Dan Hollis received many other gifts—a pipe, a pair of shoelaces, a tie pin, a knit pair of socks, some fudge, a pair of garters made from old suspenders.
He unwrapped each gift with vast pleasure, and wore as many of them as he could right there, even the garters. He lit up the pipe, and said he'd never had a better smoke; which wasn't quite true, because the pipe wasn't broken in yet. Pete Manners had had it lying around ever since he'd received it as a gift four years ago from an out-of-town relative who hadn't known he'd stopped smoking.
Dan put the tobacco into the bowl very carefully. Tobacco was precious. It was only pure luck that Pat Reilly had decided to try to grow some in his backyard just before what had happened to Peaksville had happened. It didn't grow very well, and then they had to cure it and shred it and all, and it was just precious stuff. Everybody in town used wooden holders old McIntyre had made, to save on butts.
Last of all, Thelma Dunn gave Dan Hollis the record she had found.
Dan's eyes misted even before he opened the package. He knew it was a record.
"Gosh,” he said softly. “What one is it? I'm almost afraid to look..."
"You haven't got it, darling,” Ethel Hollis smiled.
"Don't you remember, I asked about You Are My Sunshine?"
"Oh, gosh,” Dan said again. Carefully he removed the wrapping and stood there fondling the record, running his big hands over the worn grooves with their tiny, dulling crosswise scratches. He looked around the room, eyes shining, and they all smiled back, knowing how delighted he was.
"Happy birthday, darling!” Ethel said, throwing her arms around him and kissing him.
He clutched the record in both hands, holding it off to one side as she pressed against him. “Hey,” he laughed, pulling back his head. “Be careful ... I'm holding a priceless object!” He looked around again, over his wife's arms, which were still around his neck. His eyes were hungry. “Look ... do you think we could play it? Lord, what I'd give to hear some new music ... just the first part, the orchestra part, b
efore Como sings?"
Faces sobered. After a minute, John Sipich said, “I don't think we'd better, Dan. After all, we don't know just where the singer comes in—it'd be taking too much of a chance. Better wait till you get home."
Dan Hollis reluctantly put the record on the buffet with all his other presents. “It's good,” he said automatically, but disappointedly, “that I can't play it here."
"Oh, yes,” said Sipich. “It's good.” To compensate for Dan's disappointed tone, he repeated, “It's good."
* * * *
They ate dinner, the candles lighting their smiling faces, and ate it all right down to the last delicious drop of gravy. They complimented Mom and Aunt Amy on the roast beef, and the peas and carrots, and the tender corn on the cob. The corn hadn't come from the Fremont's cornfields naturally—everybody knew what was out there; and the field was going to weeds.
Then they polished off the dessert—homemade ice cream and cookies. And then they sat back, in the flickering light of the candles, and chatted, waiting for television.
There never was a lot of mumbling on television night—everybody came and had a good dinner at the Fremonts', and that was nice, and afterwards there was television, and nobody really thought much about that—it just had to be put up with. So it was a pleasant enough get-together, aside from your having to watch what you said just as carefully as you always did everyplace. If a dangerous thought came into your mind, you just started mumbling, even right in the middle of a sentence. When you did that, the others just ignored you until you felt happier again and stopped.
Anthony liked television night. He had done only two or three awful things on television night in the whole past year.
Mom had put a bottle of brandy on the table, and they each had a tiny glass of it. Liquor was even more precious than tobacco. The villagers could make wine, but the grapes weren't right, and certainly the techniques weren't, and it wasn't very good wine. There were only a few bottles of real liquor left in the village: four rye, three Scotch, three brandy, nine real wine and half a bottle of Drambuie belonging to old McIntyre (only for marriages) and when those were gone, that was it.
Afterward, everybody wished that the brandy hadn't been brought out. Because Dan Hollis drank more of it than he should have, and mixed it with a lot of the homemade wine. Nobody thought anything about it at first, because he didn't show it much outside, and it was his birthday party and a happy party, and Anthony liked these get-togethers and shouldn't see any reason to do anything even if he was listening.
But Dan Hollis got high, and did a fool thing. If they'd seen it coming, they'd have taken him outside and walked him around.
The first thing they knew, Dan stopped laughing right in the middle of the story about how Thelma Dunn had found the Perry Como record and dropped it and it hadn't broken because she'd moved faster than she ever had before in her life and caught it. He was fondling the record again, and looking longingly at the Fremonts’ gramophone over in the corner, and suddenly he stopped laughing and his face got slack, and then it got ugly, and he said, “Oh, Christ!"
Immediately the room was still. So still they could hear the whirring movement of the grandfather's clock out in the hall. Pat Reilly had been playing the piano, softly. He stopped, his hands poised over the yellowed keys.
The candles on the dining-room table flickered in a cool breeze that blew through the lace curtains over the bay window.
"Keep playing, Pat,” Anthony's father said softly.
Pat started again. He played Night and Day, but his eyes were sidewise on Dan Hollis, and he missed notes.
Dan stood in the middle of the room, holding the record. In his other hand he held a glass of brandy so hard his hand shook.
They were all looking at him.
"Christ,” he said again, and he made it sound like a dirty word.
Reverend Younger, who had been talking with Mom and Aunt Amy by the dining-room door, said “Christ” too—but he was using it in a prayer. His hands were clasped, and his eyes were closed.
John Sipich moved forward. “Now, Dan ... it's good for you to talk that way. But you don't want to talk too much, you know."
Dan shook off the hand Sipich put on his arm.
"Can't even play my record,” he said loudly. He looked down at the record, and then around at their faces. “Oh, my God..."
He threw the glassful of brandy against the wall. It splattered and ran down the wallpaper in streaks.
Some of the women gasped.
"Dan,” Sipich said in a whisper. “Dan, cut it out—” Pat Reilly was playing Night and Day louder, to cover up the sounds of the talk. It wouldn't do any good, though, if Anthony was listening.
Dan Hollis went over to the piano and stood by Pat's shoulder, swaying a little.
"Pat,” he said. “Don't play that. Play this.” And he began to sing. Softly, hoarsely, miserably: “Happy birthday to me ... Happy birthday to me..."
"Dan!” Ethel Hollis screamed. She tried to run across the room to him. Mary Sipich grabbed her arm and held her back. “Dan,” Ethel screamed again. “Stop—"
"My God, be quiet!” hissed Mary Sipich, and pushed her toward one of the men, who put his hand over her mouth and held her still.
"Happy birthday, dear Danny,” Dan sang. “Happy birthday to me!” He stopped and looked down at Pat Reilly. “Play it, Pat. Play it, so I can sing right ... you know I can't carry a tune unless somebody plays it!"
Pat Reilly put his hands on the keys and began Lover—in a slow waltz tempo, the way Anthony liked it. Pat's face was white. His hands fumbled.
Dan Hollis stared over at the dining-room door. At Anthony's mother, and at Anthony's father who had gone to join her.
"You had him,” he said. Tears gleamed on his cheeks as the candlelight caught them. “You had to go and have him..."
He closed his eyes, and the tears squeezed out. He sang loudly. “You are my sunshine ... my only sunshine ... you make me happy ... when I am blue..."
Anthony came into the room.
Pat stopped playing. He froze. Everybody froze. The breeze rippled the curtains. Ethel Hollis couldn't even try to scream—she had fainted.
"Please don't take my sunshine ... away.” Dan's voice faltered into silence. His eyes widened. He put both hands out in front of him, the empty glass in one, the record in the other. He hiccupped, and said, “No."
"Bad man,” Anthony said, and thought Dan Hollis into something like nothing anyone would have believed possible, and then he thought the thing into a grave deep, deep in the cornfield.
The glass and record thumped on the rug. Neither broke.
Anthony's purple gaze went around the room.
Some of the people began mumbling. They all tried to smile. The sound of mumbling filled the room like a far-off approval. Out of the murmuring came one or two clear voices:
"Oh, it's a very good thing,” said John Sipich.
"A good thing,” said Anthony's father, smiling. He'd had more practice in smiling than most of them. “A wonderful thing."
"It's swell ... just swell,” said Pat Reilly, tears leaking from eyes and nose, and he began to play the piano again, softly, his trembling hands feeling for Night and Day.
Anthony climbed up on top of the piano, and Pat played for two hours.
* * * *
Afterward, they watched television. They all went into the front room, and lit just a few candles, and pulled up chairs around the set. It was a small-screen set, and they couldn't all sit close enough to it to see, but that didn't matter. They didn't even turn the set on. It wouldn't have worked anyway, there being no electricity in Peaksville.
They just sat silently, and watched the twisting, writhing shapes on the screen, and listened to the sounds that came out of the speaker, and none of them had any idea of what it was all about. They never did. It was always the same.
"It's real nice,” Aunt Amy said once, her pale eyes on the meaningless flickers and shadows. “But I
liked it a little better when there were cities outside and we could get real—"
"Why, Amy!” said Mom. “It's good for you to say such a thing. Very good. But how can you mean it? Why, this television is much better than anything we ever used to get!"
"Yes,” chimed in John Sipich. “It's fine. It's the best show we've ever seen!"
He sat on the couch, with two other men, holding Ethel Hollis flat against the cushions, holding her arms and legs and putting their hands over her mouth, so she couldn't start screaming again.
"It's really good!” he said again.
Mom looked out of the front window, across the darkened road, across Henderson's darkened wheat field to the vast, endless, gray nothingness in which the little village of Peaksville floated like a soul—the huge nothingness that was most evident at night, when Anthony's brassy day had gone.
It did no good to wonder where they were ... no good at all. Peaksville was just someplace. Someplace away from the world. It was wherever it had been since that day three years ago when Anthony had crept from her womb and old Doc Bates—God rest him—had screamed and dropped him and tried to kill him, and Anthony had whined and done the thing. Had taken the village someplace. Or had destroyed the world and left only the village, nobody knew which.
It did no good to wonder about it. Nothing at all did any good—except to live as they must live. Must always, always live, if Anthony would let them.
These thoughts were dangerous, she thought.
She began to mumble. The others started mumbling too. They had all been thinking, evidently.
The men on the couch whispered and whispered to Ethel Hollis, and when they took their hands away, she mumbled too.
While Anthony sat on top of the set and made television, they sat around and mumbled and watched the meaningless, flickering shapes far into the night. Next day it snowed, and killed off half the crops—but it was a good day.
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