A Pair of Aces

by Joe R. Lansdale

  Neither happened.

  Draighton just stood there in the shadows, and then he walked inside and moved around the room, from one corner to the next, very slow, and then he sat down on the stool, lifted his head and looked up.

  Leroy looked up as well. All that was up there was a fly-specked bulb of about forty watts. Draighton, however, took an inordinate interest in it, before lowering his head and letting it nod this way and that.

  "Did he die on this stool?" Draighton said loud enough for the smoking therapist to hear.

  The therapist came to the doorway, said, "Yes. Well, they found him lying beside it. His hand was outstretched toward the wall."

  "Where is the razor? Do the police have it?"

  "Well, Draighton, that was part of a little mystery. They didn't find it. They think it was a razor because of the way the cut looked. It could have been a knife. But the weapon wasn't found."

  "Then why would they think he did it?"

  "Because he wrote a note."

  "Oh."

  "It said. 'I had to.' And that was it."

  The therapist studied Draighton carefully, and Leroy thought it was because he was still waiting to see Draighton go off his nut. But, if this was indeed his plan, he was disappointed.

  "But where would the razor go?" Draighton asked.

  "I know. It sounds more like murder. No murder weapon. But, the police believe, that due to the note, and the blood on the wall, your father cut his throat, and, well, hid it."

  "But where?"

  "It is a mystery, isn't it? But, that doesn't mean it was anything other than what it appears to be. A murder, suicide."

  "He cut his throat and then hid it?" Draighton asked. "Wouldn't that be hard?"

  "It would, but they think that's what happened. There was a cat in the house—"

  "—Snowball," Draighton said.

  "Yes. Your cat. And they believe it may have taken the razor in its mouth and wandered off with it. You know, the blood would have attracted him."

  "Snowball carried off an open razor in his teeth?"

  Leroy thought Draighton was asking some pretty good questions. Damn. This was great.

  "I don't know, Draighton," the therapist said, "I'm telling you what the police thought."

  "They're dumb," Draighton said.

  "Well, they are the police."

  "They're dumb. Even I know the cat wouldn't do that, and I'm a little kid. Where's Snowball?"

  "Well, they determined the cat was in the house, but the window was open over the kitchen sink, and they believe he went out that way…He…Well, Draighton. He got run over."

  "Killed?"

  "I'm afraid so."

  Draighton, finally overwhelmed, sitting there on the stool, hung his head and began to cry.

  Leroy thought: Priceless. Even the cat is dead.

  A few days went by and Leroy found himself growing somewhat pleasant toward the stiff-legged invader. Perhaps it was because he was impressed a bit with Draighton. He had liked the way he had talked to the therapist about the shortcomings of the police, and he felt, in spite of his temporary breakdown on his father's death stool, that he had recovered reasonably well. He even saw fit to sit with him at lunch at school.

  But another thing had crept into the mix. He had helped William Townson with his homework one afternoon, or was forced to was more the truth of it, and William had taken a kind of liking to him. Oh, he called Leroy Four-Eyes and Numb Nuts, but from William they were more like terms of affection, like the sort of nicknames you might come up with for a beloved, if somewhat belabored relationship with an unattractive pet. A dog missing an eye, an ear, or a leg, possibly one with a cut off tail, or perhaps the whole list.

  This relationship grew, and pretty soon Leroy found he was in the company of a number of the cooler and better respected boys, and that William ran interference for him. Saying stuff like, "Well, he may be a dumb shit, but he's my dumb shit. Don't hit him but once. And on the arm."

  Leroy thought it was okay for William to say that stuff because it put him in the company of a number of the well respected boys, and this began to rub off on him. This was a good thing. Girls came around.

  Certainly, they weren't interested in him. But it was as close as he ever got, outside of sitting behind some nubile sweetie in class, or passing them in the hall, riding home on the bus with one of them sitting in a seat nearby. They never even knew he was there, but when they came around and talked to William, who was smooth with them and was willing to touch them, Leroy felt that through his connection to William he was able, via a kind of pet ownership, to sniff at the asses of the female population, have dreams of someday mounting their legs. It was as close as he thought a dog deserved to the prize.

  It was a dream, and it wasn't much and it wasn't going to happen, but it was all he had.

  And then there was Draighton.

  Therein lay a problem.

  Now, for a time he had felt Draighton's presence was acceptable, because at school, it gave him a kind of pet, someone he could look down on and humiliate, but somehow stay connected to, but when William embraced his company, his stiff-legged, pseudo-brother became not too unlike a wound that wouldn't heal.

  One time, out in the parking lot, smoking cigarettes with William, not because he liked them, but because he knew they made William look cool and therefore thought they might make him look the same, William said, "Who's that little retard I see you with from time to time? The gimp?"

  "He's staying with us."

  "He don't look cool, Four-Eyes. You hang with me, you got to hang with the cool. And I don't need two bumps on my ass. I ain't sure why I got the one, you know what I'm saying?"

  "Sure, William. Sure."

  "You got my homework?"

  "Yeah."

  "Miss a few? You got to. I get too many they know I'm a cheating sonofabitch."

  "Our papers are different," Leroy said, scrounging in his pack, pulling it out. "I think I even managed to do it like your handwriting."

  William took the paper and looked at it. "You four-eyed little prick. You didn't give me a folder to go with it."

  "Oh. I have it here."

  Leroy produced it and William clamped the papers inside. He flipped it opened and studied it. "This here looks good," he said.

  "Thanks," Leroy said. "I did my best."

  "I know you did," William said.

  After that moment, Leroy began to push himself even farther away from his unwanted companion. Refused to sit with Draighton at school lunches, and instead sat with William and his friends. He was insulted there and made fun of and poked and sometimes tripped, but they wouldn't let Draighton sit with him, but when he came around the long table toward Leroy, Leroy stuck out a leg and tripped Draighton, sent his tray and food and utensils flying.

  Draighton fought to get himself back on his feet, without so much as a helping hand, did this amidst ridicule and laughter, gathered up his plate and utensils, put them on his tray and kicked back toward the center of the cafeteria.

  William stuck out his fist and Leroy stuck out his, and they bumped knuckles.

  He was in now.

  That night, up in their room, Draighton sat in the corner, his back against the wall, his bound legs stretched out in front of him. Leroy came in from having showered and found him that way. He assumed he had fallen and couldn't get up, but he didn't offer to help.

  Draighton looked up at him, said, "Why, Leroy? Why did you do that?"

  "Do what?"

  "You know what I mean."

  "Yeah. I know. Because I could."

  Over the next month Leroy noticed a change in Draighton. He no longer even tried to be friends. He was sullen in the room, and had taken to sleeping on a pallet near the far wall. This was all right with Leroy. It gave him all of the bed and he didn't have to put up with him at school. Seeing him now was like seeing a ghost. Nothing really there. Just a wraith kicking its away around the house and the halls at school.
r />   When it all but seemed Draighton had turned to smoke and disappeared, Leroy began to notice peculiarities. Once, he awoke and saw that Draighton was gone. It was no big thing, as he assumed he had gone to the bathroom, but the next night it was the same, and from his window, which was cracked to let in some of the winter wind, he heard a clanking sound. He arose and looked out. The moonlight was dim, but he could see going along the sidewalk, moving quite briskly in spite of his leg braces, the figure of Draighton. He watched until Draighton had kicked his way into darkness.

  Maybe he'll get run over, thought Leroy. Or kidnapped. Maybe someone out there has a thing for cripples. If they did, it would be handy, because they could chase Draighton down quick and kill him. Maybe commit sexual abuse. Leroy had a hard time trying to imagine that, why anyone would want to have any kind of sex with Draighton. A robot, maybe. Someone made of steel. There might be some kind of appeal there. Outside of that, there was the killing part. Someone might do that. Someone who didn't like cripples.

  Wouldn't that be a thing?

  It was something to hope for.

  Leroy went back to bed.

  One night late in the bedroom, Draighton was over in the corner sitting on a stool, Draighton's daddy's stool, a lamp light on, his little bag between his outstretched metal-strapped legs. Draighton had the bag open and was plundering its contents. Leroy was in bed with pillows propping him up. He watched Draighton go about his business with a kind of amazement. It seemed it was only yesterday when the room was his and it was large, and now it was his to share and it was small.

  "What are you doing?" Leroy asked.

  "Looking for something," Draighton said, without glancing up.

  "That bag ain't that big. You ought to be able to find anything pretty quick."

  "I already found it."

  Leroy watched as Draighton took out a long wooden box.

  "What's that?"

  "It belonged to my daddy."

  "Well, what is it?"

  "A razor."

  "Like the one he cut your Mama with, then himself?"

  "It is that one."

  "It can't be."

  "It can, and it is," Draighton said, balancing the box on his knee.

  "It can't be, Wire Legs. It was never found."

  "I found it."

  "You been back to the house?" Leroy knew that he had, of course, or where would he have gotten the stool. Still, it was somehow a stupefying thought.

  "Yes," Draighton said. "I've been back to the house."

  "That's where you go at night?"

  Draighton nodded, opened the box and reached in and took out the razor, and even from there Leroy could see that it was crusted with dried blood.

  "Good God," Leroy said.

  "He cut his own throat, put it back in the box, and hid it behind the wall in the garage storage closet."

  "We looked there. The police looked there. There wasn't any place for it to be. He wouldn't have had the strength to do it."

  "He cut his throat and he took it over to the wall board and pulled it loose and there was a little place for it back there. He put it in the box and put it away and sat back down on the stool and died."

  "You can't know that."

  "I know it."

  "He cut his throat, he wasn't going anywhere. You know that."

  "He did though. Did you know that there are eleven dimensions?"

  "What are you talking about?"

  "There are eleven and they bump against one another, and sometimes they collide. They can collide with great force, and perhaps in the past that was the source of the Big Bang, the colliding of dimensional matter. The dimensions exist alongside ours and we can't see them or touch them, except now and then when something slips through."

  "Are you taking some kind of drug? They got like a drug they give cripples? I know you go to the doctor now and then. Mom and Dad take you. Is the doctor having you take something?"

  "There is a lord of all things sharp, and he lives in one of those dimensions, and he can be called. He can be invited. He can slip through. His is the world of the razor, and he is the lord of the razor. The King of Shadows."

  "You don't sound right. Where you getting this hogwash?"

  "It's true. You cut yourself with the right tool, it can open your mind and it can open the worlds. The dimensions. Eleven become one. Sometimes, when they bump just right, they multiply, on down to the singularity of existence, and beyond. There is time beyond the singularity. Can you imagine that."

  "No. I don't know what a singularity is."

  "I've seen the distance. The great distance. It is forever and can make you mad. It's amazing. It's so much more than this. I tell you, you can open your mind."

  "Only if your head is split," Leroy said.

  Draighton shook his head. "No. You can open your mind with a simple cut from the right tool." Draighton held up his left hand. From there Leroy could see there was a big red mark on his thumb. A cut.

  Leroy was beginning to feel nervous, because Draighton, sitting there draped in shadow, the razor in his hand, the box for it on his knee, didn't sound like Draighton. He wasn't talking like Draighton. He wasn't talking like anyone he knew and he wasn't talking about anything anyone knew.

  "Way it works," Draighton said, " is the razor is made from a specific metal that was created when the dimensions collided so hard so long ago and banged everything into existence. When the great boom happened and all manner of matter knocked against itself, some of it was matter from planes we do not perceive, with physics we do not understand. My father, he bought the razor in an antique store. He thought it was strange. He accidently cut himself right before I went to Boy Scout camp. I remember. He cut himself and he said what I'm saying, and I thought it was strange. Mom thought it was strange. I understand it now. I don't think it's so strange at all. You know, there are cuts in all manner of tools if they are blessed with the words of opening, and these tools, like the razor, they can open your mind, and you can fall, fall, fall, down deep into forever."

  "You're making me nervous," Leroy said.

  "Am I?"

  "Yeah."

  "You made me very nervous at school. What you did, it embarrassed me. It made me feel even smaller than I am. It made me feel insignificant. But now, I feel less that way. The cut, it can open your mind."

  With a flick of the wrist, Draighton sprang the razor open.

  "Well," Leroy said, shifting in bed. "I didn't mean to. Make you feel small, I mean."

  "I think you did mean to."

  "Maybe. I was out of line. I admit it."

  "You do?"

  "I certainly do."

  Leroy watched as the shadows that had been made by clouds and had come through the window to nest with Draighton moved away from him, and now he was just a little four-eyed dude with metal clamps on his legs, a big, open, shiny razor in one hand.

  "You might want to clean that razor," Leroy said. "Clean it and put it away."

  "Think so?"

  "Sure."

  "You seem nervous, Leroy."

  "I'm fine. I just don't want you to cut yourself. That thing is huge. I don't see how anyone could shave with that thing."

  "I don't think it's meant for shaving," Draighton said, and then Leroy watched as a kind of film moved away from Draighton's eyes, and they were just Draighton's eyes now, small and piggy, desperate behind his glasses.

  Draighton studied Leroy for a moment, looked down to see the razor in his hand, closed it carefully, placed it in the box and put the box in his bag. He continued to sit on the stool, just watching.

  "You look like some kind of owl over there," Leroy said. "You ought to go to bed."

  "Guess I ought to."

  "I don't think you ought to sleep up here in my bed. Go on and lay down on your pallet."

  "Okay."

  Leroy reached over and turned out the lamp light, which didn't seem to be giving the room much of a glow anyway, and pulled the covers up to his chin and
turned his head on his pillow so he faced Draighton. He closed his eyes, but parted them slightly to watch. Draighton hadn't moved to go to bed. He hadn't moved at all. He just sat there on his daddy's stool with the razor box on his knee staring into empty space as if it were not empty at all.

  Leroy didn't like it, and he thought he'd watch to make sure things were okay, but it didn't work out. He went to sleep anyway. But once, during the night, feeling cool, he semi-awoke to pull up the covers, and there in the dark he saw something that disturbed him. A wad of shadows in the corner on the stool were illuminated by a strand of moonlight wagging through the window. Very clearly he saw a figure on the stool. Draighton. Had to be. But he looked bigger and he was wearing a tall top hat. Then the moon was lost to cloud cover again, and there was only the squat shadowy shape of Draighton on the stool.

  Leroy tried to awake, but couldn't. He fell back down into darkness, knowing what he had seen to be a bad and strange dream, something he could wish away. And he did. And in spite of the strangeness, or perhaps because of it, he fell asleep.

  Once more, near morning, he awoke, and there on the stool, a notebook in hand, writing furiously, was Draighton. He was sure that Draighton had been up all night. He thought about that a moment, then realized it was Saturday, no school, so he closed his eyes and drifted off for a while.

  That Saturday when Leroy went down for breakfast, Draighton was nowhere to be seen.

  "Where's Draighton?" Leroy asked.

  His mother, who was busy serving him breakfast, said, "He came down early. He wasn't hungry. He said he was going to the park."

  "The park?"

  "That's what he said."

  Leroy sat in his chair with his plate in front of him and watched it fill with eggs and bacon. He thought about what he thought he had seen last night, about the bad dream, and now, in the clear light of day he was uncertain what he had seen, if it was a dream, if it was real.

  No. Couldn't be real. That didn't work. Did not compute.

  "Your father and I are going to go visit your dad's aunt," his mother said when he had finished his breakfast and was polishing off a glass of milk. "She's been quite ill. We won't be back until late. Maybe very late. You can watch Draighton, can't you? Lock the house up before it's dark. Don't go out after it's late. I'll give you money for you and Draighton to buy hamburgers and go the movie before dark. But after dark, I want you home."