Fear Itself

by Jeff Gelb

  She says she’ll think about it. It’s a big step.

  It’s a step the fuck away from Butch.

  I try to see him enough so he doesn’t get nervous, but not so much it’ll make me nervous. It’s not that I think he’d kill me. It’s just like spiders. I’m not really scared they’re going to hurt me. I just don’t like them crawling around me.

  At least spiders are what they’re supposed to be.

  It’s easy to be self righteous. But you got to look at the whole picture. The kids and Jilian and the money and covering my ass and the department. No, fuck the department. It’s the fucking money. It’s me in the joint with a bunch of dirtbags.

  Because, you know, Butch thought it through, himself. He collected her life insurance, too. It was way premeditated. He’d get the gas chamber like some dirtbag. But his getting away with it is hard to stand. I hear him say, “You a ho, right?”

  One night I go over to his house, after he’s been drinking heavy, and I go up to his bedroom, same room where he slept next to Delia for years and years. He’s sacked out, fully clothed on the bed, his head deep in those blue satin pillowcases Delia picked out. I know him, he won’t wake up after all the beer. I’m standing over Butch, who’s snoring these long contented snores, and I’ve got his gun in my gloved hand, and I think maybe I’m going to blow his brains out. And slip away. Because otherwise the guy’ll ways have something over my head. The money. And I just can’t fucking stomach him walking around.

  I put the gun muzzle up to the back of his head. But then, at the last moment, I think it through: if I do it, it might look like suicide. Which would imply that yeah, he killed Delia and so I must’ve perjured myself. And making it look like a gang-banger did it would be a big mess to step into.

  Sweat’s sticking the gunbutt to my palm. So finally, I take his gun and I put it back in its holster, and I go downstairs. I’ll put in my app at the Santa Cruz SD. They got a great benefits package. That’s what I’m half thinking about as I walk out to my car.

  You got to think things through. That’s the bottom line.

  Hey. They’re not going to say shit about perjury.

  I go back upstairs, get the gun and I blow his fucking brains across that satin pillowcase.

  The Merry Go-Round Man

  Gary Brandner

  William Bobbick’s eyes bulged and the veins in his neck popped as the demonic face floated toward him. Fright sweat oozed from his pores and a scream caught in his throat.

  Run! Run! Get away! cried his brain, but his limbs refused to respond.

  The looming face swam in and out of focus like something terrible and deadly seen at the bottom of a murky pool. Only he was looking up, not down at it. The individual features twisted and puffed and slid out of focus. Worst of all, William Bobbick knew that face, knew it well. The message behind those pale eyes was bad. Very bad. But what, exactly, was the message?

  William Bobbick’s memory was fogged like a badly overexposed photograph. His senses were dulled. He clamped his jaw and struggled to locate the face in time and space, and decipher its message.

  Think back … think … remember… a day long ago …

  It started out as the very best day in his life. The sun was golden bright, the morning sky so blue it hurt your eyes. Billy Bobbick lay awake in the bunk bed watching the model P-40 rotate lazily above his head on the thread that suspended it from a thumb tack in the ceiling. His little brother Corky was still asleep below him. As the older brother, Billy had first call on the upper bunk.

  He breathed in a noseful of the sweet summertime smell of fresh cut grass. Along with the perfume of lilacs, it floated in through the screened window with the morning breeze. The outdoor fragrances blended with the Sunday breakfast smell of pancakes and bacon. A perfect beginning for a very special day. The carnival was in town, and this year the whole family was going—Dad, Mother, Billy, and Corky.

  If there was a tiny cloud on the blue horizon that morning, Billy Bobbick did not see it. He had not yet met the merry-go-round man.

  Ever since school let out for the summer, more than a month before, Billy had impatiently awaited the coming of Getchel’s Greater Shows. Big splashy posters were tacked on telephone poles and propped in store windows to announce the wonders to come. Billy lived in an agony of anticipation until at last the carnival came rumbling and tootling into town with music to make a boy’s blood race, and colors to dazzle his eyes.

  Sure, the carnival came every year about this time, but always before the fates or something had kept the Bobbick family away. Either Billy had the mumps or Corky was too little or Mother was worried about Dad. She worried a lot about Dad, always reminding him to take his pills, and not to tire himself. It made no sense to Billy. As far as he could tell, Dad was the strongest and most indestructible of men.

  This year Mother was, if anything, more worried than usual. Billy often caught her looking at Dad with a strange fear in her eyes. She was not happy about going to the carnival, but Dad said this year they were going, and that was that. He said there might not be any more carnivals until the war ended, and he did not want the boys to miss out.

  The war filled much of the talk of grownups. Billy thought it was exciting and fun. In the comic books strong-jawed American heroes blasted slavering Nazis and bucktoothed Japs to bloody shreds. In the movies, even when one of our guys got killed, it was clean and painless, while the enemy died screaming and spurting blood. Billy did not understand why this one-sided struggle should make a difference in the coming of the carnival, but Dad knew about those things. Billy secretly hoped the war would last long enough for him to enlist.

  On that bright summer day the comic book war was far away and forgotten amid the clatter and jangle of the carnival. It looked like everybody in town was there, strolling around the circular sawdust path, laughing, eating, reading the bright canvas fronts on the carnival attractions. Billy did not think much about it, but his was one of the few complete families. Most of the smaller kids were with their mothers alone. There were the boys and girls from high school who talked loudly and laughed a lot and pretended not to be aware of each other. A few old people walked slowly and watched the young ones with sad, remembering eyes. And there was a scattering of young men in uniform. They were not much older than the high school boys, but they were quieter.

  Over Mother’s mild protests Dad bought the boys cotton candy and Popsicles and hot dogs on a stick and root beer. Billy threw baseballs at a stack of milk bottles but didn’t knock any down. He threw darts at balloons and popped one, but that wasn’t enough to win a prize. Corky was too little for the games, but he was mesmerized by a man who blew flames out of his mouth.

  Spaced along the inner rim of the sawdust circle were great clanking machines operated by hard-eyed men in jeans. The machines took people up in the air or spun them around or did both at the same time. The ferris wheel seemed to carry you right to the clouds, and the octopus whirled its jointed steel tentacles carrying the pods of screaming people up and down and around in an undulating thrill ride. The noise and commotion frightened Corky, but Billy pleaded to be allowed aboard these wondrous machines. Dad might have given in, but Mother shot him that look of hers and gave a firm little shake of the head that meant no chance.

  They did go through the Fun House—Billy and Corky and Dad, while Mother waited outside. With Dad right there with them it was funny and scary all at the same time. Even Corky laughed when skeletons and witches danced out at them from dark corners. They jumped at sudden noises and flinched when a wall of wooden boxes almost toppled down on them, then righted itself at the last moment. A dark passageway had slithery things along the floor that half-grabbed at your ankles. They were supposed to be snakes, but Billy knew they were only rubber. At the end the three of them sat down on a bench that collapsed under them and sent them down a slick slide to the sawdust path outside where Mother waited, looking relieved that they had made it through.

  The carnival was a
world of exciting smells and sounds and exotic sights, and Billy Bobbick felt he could live there forever. But all too soon Mother was saying to Dad, “Don’t you think we ought to call it a day? You shouldn’t overdo it.”

  “Please, Mother,” Billy said. “Can’t we stay just a little longer?”

  Dad seemed as reluctant as Billy to leave the carnival, but he never openly disagreed with Mother. He said, “I think the boys should go on at least one ride while we’re here. It’s never the same when you grow older.”

  Mother put a hand to her chest and looked up at the great wheel towering into the sky. “Phil, you know what the doctor …”

  “Just you and the boys,” Dad said quickly. “And we’ll make it the merry-go-round. How rough can the merry-go-round be?”

  “Well …” Mother was still not sure.

  “How about it, troopers?” Dad said. “One ride on the merry-go-round, then home with no complaints. Okay?”

  “Please, Mother?” said Billy.

  “May-go-round, may-go-round,” Corky cried, jumping up and down.

  “All right,” Mother said finally. “One ride, then home we go.”

  The merry-go-round. A magical parade of the proudest, most spirited horses and the richest chariots imaginable, moving to a swelling music that pumped right into your bloodstream and made you as powerful as Superman and as brave as Prince Valiant. Corky wriggled and laughed while Billy was transported beyond mere excitement. It was like looking through a window into another, unbelievably thrilling world.

  Dad bought the tickets and they waited, forever it seemed, until the whirling, lunging horses slowed and stopped and the other kids all climbed down. Right away Billy saw the mount he wanted. A fiery midnight stallion with tossing mane and a wild rolling eye. The harness was glittery silver against the horse’s black lacquer coat. The saddle a deep blood red. The horse held high his proud head, teeth bared in a cry of defiance to the world.

  The family stepped up onto the merry-go-round and Mother settled herself and Corky into one of the sedate chariots that was anchored to the floorboards. She made room on the other side of her, and Billy’s heart dropped into his stomach.

  Dad looked at him, then quickly back at Mother. “I think Billy would rather have a horse of his own.”

  At that moment Dad stood taller and stronger than the best of the caped heroes in all of the comic books.

  “But if you’re not riding …” Mother said.

  “He doesn’t need any help,” Dad said.

  “Well, if you’re sure …”

  “How about it, son, are we sure?”

  “Yeah, Dad.”

  “Here’s your tickets. I’ll be down there watching.”

  He gave two of the pink pasteboard tickets to Mom and one to Billy. “Picked out your horse?”

  Billy nodded. It was the first time he had carried his very own ticket to anything, and he clutched it as though it were his soul. His throat tightened and he could not speak, only point at the charging black.

  “Good choice. He looks full of fire. Don’t let him run away with you.” Dad laughed and rumpled Billy’s hair. He made his way to the edge of the platform and stepped down off the merry-go-round to take a position behind the low metal fence surrounding it.

  Billy hurried between the lesser horses and was relieved to see no one had yet claimed his stallion. He put one foot into a dangling stirrup, grasped the brass pole, and swung up into the saddle.

  Billy gave a pat to the hard, muscular neck of his horse and took a look at those flanking him. There was a showy white with his neck bowed, and a bay that seemed about to throw the bit. The black would leave them in his dust.

  He turned in the saddle to grin at Mother. She smiled back and waved. Corky was too busy trying to pry one of the glass jewels out of the chariot to look at him.

  With a gentle lurch the merry-go-round started to move. The music began—low booming notes, piping high squeals, clangoring bells. Gradually they turned faster. Billy gripped the smooth brass pole and held on as the midnight stallion found his gait and they pulled away from the others.

  Billy was surprised at how high the horse leaped, and how quickly they gained speed. The wind was in his face—hot from the afternoon sun and sweet with the smell of cotton candy and relish and raw sawdust. Billy opened his mouth to take big bites of the wind. His heart pounded, his blood rushed, he was in love with the world.

  The people standing beyond the fence whirled by in a blur of faces. It took several times around before Billy could find Dad. When he did, he saw Dad was grinning and waving at him. Billy wanted to wave back, but he was afraid to take a hand away from the steadying brass pole.

  But on the next turn around, he did. He let go the pole and raised his hand in a triumphant salute. And in that instant the wind snatched away his soul.

  Not really his soul, but something just as dear—the pink ticket Dad had entrusted to him. His license to ride the black charger. Without the ticket he did not belong here. He would be found out. They would … they would …

  And here he came. The merry-go-round man. Tall, gaunt, dressed in jeans and an old plaid shirt, he came, as relentless as death. One by one he took the tickets from the riders. All of them had their tickets ready. Only Billy Bobbick had lost his to the wind.

  Gone was the wild joy of the leaping, whirling ride. The calliope music turned discordant, sinister. The crazy-eyed horse bore him steadily, unstoppably toward the oncoming man who would demand his ticket or … or … Or what? Hurl him off the merry-go-round? Lock him in jail? Kill him?

  Every detail of the man’s terrible face was acid-etched into Billy’s brain. The cold gray, seen-it-all eyes. The long, lean jaw with its patchy stubble. The pink-white scar that tilted a corner of his mouth. Ever closer he came, taking tickets left and tickets right, his eyes on Billy, seeming to know this boy had no right to ride.

  Boys were not supposed to cry. Billy Bobbick knew that, and he hardly ever did. He surely did not want to cry now with Dad and Mother and Corky and the whole world looking at him. But the breath caught in his throat and the tears spilled down his face and he was crying and crying and squeezing the cold brass pole as the wild stallion bucked and lunged.

  And the merry-go-round man came closer.

  Then Dad was there. Billy never saw him jump aboard the whirling platform and make his way through the galloping horses, but there he was just in time to intercept the terrible man before he got to Billy.

  The rest of the day that had begun so bright and blue was a nightmare in gray. Dad tried to make a little joke out of Billy losing the ticket, but when he looked at the boy’s face he fell silent. Nobody said anything on the way home. Billy went straight to his room and lay there on the top bunk and stared at the ceiling and tried to erase the memory of the merry-go-round man. He couldn’t do it. Not then, not ever.

  It was only a few days after the carnival that Dad stumbled and fell out on the front lawn while pushing the lawnmower. An ambulance came and took him to the hospital. Mother tried to explain to the boys that Dad had been sick for a long time. Something was wrong with his heart. Billy could not understand; Dad had never looked sick to him. It had to be some kind of a mistake. He would not believe it until Mother took him and Corky to the hospital.

  They walked into the hushed, medicine-smelling room and looked at the man who had always been so strong, so full of health lying gray-faced and weak in the tall white bed with a tube up his nose. Nobody said it aloud, but Billy knew. Dad was going to die.

  When it happened, Mother told the boys how Dad went suddenly and without pain, and how it wasn’t anybody’s fault, just something in his heart that was not quite right. But Billy knew why his father had really died. He was to blame. It was supposed to be him who was snatched into the darkness, but Dad stepped in the way and the merry-go-round man took him instead.

  The days after Billy’s father died dragged into weeks that became months and stretched on into years. Billy’s mother
married a man named Steve who had his own hardware store and was good to the boys. He took them to movies and ball games and fishing, but the family never again went to the carnival.

  Billy Bobbick grew up and became Bill. He went to the State University and earned his degree. There was another war and he finally got to fight, but discovered there was nothing romantic about it. Corky went to California and became a computer programmer. Mother and Steve moved to Florida. Bill started his own construction company and built it into a profitable business. He married a local girl named Ruth Ann, fathered a daughter named Terrie, and joined Rotary and the Junior Chamber of Commerce and became William. The world changed. Wars continued. Carnivals died.

  Sometimes William would dream about the carnival and the merry-go-round man who was always coming coming coming for him. He would jerk awake sweaty and trembling, and Ruth Ann would lay a hand on his shoulder and remind him that he was in his own bed and safe. She thought his nightmares were about his time in the war, and he never told her different. He never told anyone about the merry-go-round man.

  One thing William Bobbick could not hide was his obsession about tickets. Any ticket—theater, airplane, lottery, parking lot—could set him off. He knew it was irrational, but that made it none the less real—the gut-grabbing fear that he would lose it. Whenever he was forced to hold a ticket he was seized by an icy, unreasoning fear. He would shiver and sweat, gripping the ticket like life itself, until he could deliver it to the taker.

  When he was kidded about his phobia William forced a little laugh, but he never talked about where the fear came from. Whenever Ruth Ann was with him he gave the tickets over to her to hold. Even then he pestered her continually to check that she still had them. She thought it was kind of cute. She did not know the cold terror that lived inside him.