The Evil B.B. Chow & Other Stories

by Steve Almond

  Mikey made a face. “Church?”

  “I want both of you in your suits. No arguments.”

  She wore a new dress, dark blue, and makeup and high-heel shoes. His father wore a suit as well. They drove in silence. Eric wondered if the Bellamys would be there. His suit felt too tight.

  In the parking lot, Eric’s mother went to find friends.

  “Dad,” Mikey said. “Why are we here?”

  “We’re here for church, Mike.”

  “But why? It’s not Christmas.”

  Eric’s father dropped into a crouch and addressed his son face-to-face. “Now come on, Mike. Don’t start up. We’ve come to church to worship. You should know better than to misbehave. Try to act like your brother. You don’t see him complaining, do you?”

  His mother met them at the entrance and marched them up the center aisle to the front pew. Eric felt sure the Bellamys would join them there. He began rehearsing in his head what he would say to them. How sorry he was, how worried and sorry.

  But then the hymns began. The minister, a stout man in a purple robe, delivered a rambling sermon about Jesus and the Pharisees. “Jesus wore a simple frock and from this drew his hand, and said, ‘Let no blood stain the hands of an innocent.’ And, you see, he forgave them their scorn, because, because you see, it was the scorn of ignorance.” He said this in such a distracted tone, though, that Eric imagined he was terribly hungry. Mikey fell asleep; he yipped softly when their mother pinched him.

  “Before we depart,” the minister said, “I would like the congregation to say a prayer for William Bellamy, and the family of William Bellamy, of Dorset Centre, who, as some of you may know, was, is still, in the hospital. In fact, Mrs. Janine, or Jeanie Hielman, also of Dorset Centre, has volunteered to lead the congregation in prayer.”

  Eric’s mother ascended the altar and gazed into the crowd, past the astonished faces of her sons, and said, “Lord in Heaven, please see William to a safe recovery, that his family might rest easier. Let us all pray for this. We are praying, my family, my boys—” Her voice cracked and she had to halt. “My boys and I, for William and his family.” She stifled another sob and returned to her seat.

  On the ride home, she said: “We should do that more often.”

  “No we shouldn’t,” Mikey said, though he said this quietly, to himself, with a child’s accidental sense of purpose.

  BILL BELLAMY DID not recover. Instead, the hospital announced what everyone had known for some time: he had fallen into a coma. The following weeks brought an odd silence. Nothing was said about the incident itself, but it informed much of what went on in Dorset Centre. An ordinance was passed requiring kids to wear protective gear when they played athletics in Dorset Park. But the kids, without any really discussion of the matter, abandoned the Prison Lot. The small, fenced field that had once been the center of a communal life to Eric and his friends gathered leaves.

  Mrs. Bellamy (never, according to Eric’s mother, a stable person) took to riding Bill’s bicycle through the development, trailing after her daughter. Both wore pigtails. From time to time, Eric saw Mr. Bellamy returning from the junior high in his old station wagon, staring vacantly ahead at the road. If he recognized Eric, he gave no indication.

  Bill Bellamy died in late October, a few days before Halloween. Eric’s mother, who learned of this almost immediately, said nothing until his father came home. She sent Mikey to bed and sat both of them down. “The doctors said there was really nothing left to do. I called the Bellamys to express our condolences. I asked about sending a floral arrangement. Bill’s father said they have set up a memorial fund. I told him we would contribute, of course.” She put out her cigarette and straightened her armrest cover and looked at Eric. “I know this has been a difficult time for you, Eric. You feel responsible. That is only natural. But you must realize that this is not your fault. No one blames you, so you mustn’t blame yourself.” She got up from the couch and went to Eric and grappled him into a hug. “We love you for who you are,” she said.

  Eric’s father seemed caught off guard. “Your mother is right,” he said, glancing at the crystal decanter atop the liquor cabinet. “It’s very sad. For this to have happened. Sad. But you can’t, you can’t let this, you know, stop you …” His mouth continued moving, but no sound came out. He appeared to have lost his place.

  “Yes,” his mother said. “We feel, we both feel, that you’ve put yourself through quite a lot over this. Too much. We understand if you are sad. And especially now, with this. It is terribly sad. Tragic. But you mustn’t do this to yourself. Remember how much you used to like baseball? And you don’t play at all anymore, now. Mrs. Blake and Mrs. Hayes, they say, you know, they don’t see you much anymore. And the boys miss you too. You are such a successful boy, so smart and handsome. So popular.” Abruptly, she got up and went to the kitchen and returned holding a cake pan.

  Eric glanced at his father, who shook his head.

  “Remember how we used to make a cake for Halloween, before you were old enough to go trick-or-treating? And you could request the colors? You always wanted green cake with orange frosting, remember? Such silly colors. When I heard this, about poor Bill Bellamy, I was quite upset, as you can imagine. And I needed something to distract myself, I guess, and I found myself making a chocolate cake. It’s been years since I’ve baked, Lord knows, but I just found myself making it. These aren’t the colors you requested, but I did the best I could.”

  The cake, lettered in orange and green, read: I AM AS I AM. “I put those words on as a reminder, Eric. A reminder that we love you for who you are. If you’re hungry, you can have a piece before bed. I know it’s against house rules, but I won’t tell if you won’t.” She smiled tightly and hurried to the kitchen, where Eric heard her clattering for a knife. She returned with a small square of cake on a plate, which she set before him. The cake was yellow. Alma, the maid, must have made it.

  “I’m not really hungry,” he said.

  “If you have a piece it will be like you are giving yourself a reward. A reward for being so brave about all this.” Eric’s mother looked at his father. “It’s the message that’s most important, Eric,” she said brightly. “The message. Isn’t that right?”

  Eric waited for his father to say something, to break the silence that settled over them. But he only looked again at the bourbon, this time with a pitiable longing.

  And so Eric picked up his fork and chewed the cake and swallowed and thanked his mother and told her he understood and not to worry and climbed the stairs and lay in bed and waited for sleep. He waited a long time. He heard his mother and father below, her shrill incantations, his drowsy murmurs, the clink of his ice cubes, the snap of her lighter. He heard them climb the stairs and go about their before-bed rituals. He wondered if his father would come to say good night.

  After a time, Eric stopped wondering. It was dark and quiet and when the salty taste of nausea came, he felt relieved. He ran to the bathroom and stooped and his stomach heaved. Someone hurried into the hallway. Eric shut the door and locked it.

  He turned the light out and touched his forehead to the cool rim of the toilet and let his mother’s voice bounce off the door. A whitish silence rose around him. Then a green stretch of lawn slowly unfurled and at the far end, clear as could be, stood Bill Bellamy. His face was hideously swollen, disfigured in a manner Eric recognized at once as permanent. Bellamy was nonetheless determined to speak. He offered a slight bow and clambered onto the raised platform and addressed Eric in a voice that swirled the leaves of the Prison Lot and traveled to every well-tended corner of Dorset Centre. “I am as I am,” Bill Bellamy said. “Remember that. Remember me.”

  A HAPPY DREAM

  HENRY WAS OUT in front of the Brattle waiting for his sister, Marla, who was late, on the verge of standing him up actually, when he saw a woman zip across the street on a ten-speed bike. This was crazy. It was early February, the roads were still layered with dirty snow. The woman bonked i
nto a parking meter, locked the bike, pulled her hat off, and there was her hair, a cascade of the stuff. She looked around briskly and made straight for Henry.

  “You must be Michael,” she said. “I’m Kate.”

  This was a pretty woman. Not beautiful. Not gorgeous. But then, Henry was all done with gorgeous. He’d just been dumped by a gorgeous woman. Or, well, a year ago he’d been dumped. And anyway, this woman, this pretty Kate, with her hair and her big, lovely nose, she was looking into his eyes expectantly and he didn’t even want to see Marla, that was the truth, with her terrible social worker pity face and her cheery advice, You need to get out there more, give yourself a chance, blah-blah-blah.

  Henry smiled shyly. “Call me Mike,” he said.

  AFTER THE MOVIE, they went to a bar. Kate ordered a gimlet.

  “What’s a gimlet?” Henry said.

  “I don’t know. I just like saying gimlet. Gimlet-gimlet-gimlet.” She swept her hair into a bun. “So anyway, Laurie told me you’re a firefighter. What’s that like, Mike?”

  Henry paused and looked around and swallowed.

  “Oh,” he said. “You know. Hot. Awfully hot.”

  Kate laughed. She had a terrific laugh, loud and a little throaty.

  The drinks arrived and Henry gulped at his. “The thing is,” he said, “there’s really not as much action as you might think. Mostly, it’s just sitting around the station. Folks are pretty good about fire safety these days.”

  Kate looked a little disappointed.

  “That’s not to say there haven’t been some close calls,” he said.

  “What’s the most dangerous fire you ever fought?”

  “The most dangerous fire I’ve ever fought? Huh. Let me think about that one.” Henry was pretty sure he was going to hell. On the other hand, he felt glorious, alive in a way he hadn’t for months. “I guess, well, a couple of years ago there was this four-alarm over at Haviland Candy. They were working double shifts for Valentine’s and someone must have fallen asleep. These big copper vats of chocolate exploding all over the place and flames licking at the marshmallows. Corn syrup is highly flammable, you know.”

  “My God!” Kate was running her swizzle stick along the cleft in her chin. “Were you okay?”

  “A touch of smoke inhalation. No big deal. But enough about me. Tell me what you do.”

  SO NOW HENRY was following Kate home. Kate who was 27 years old and performed improv sketch comedy and worked as a chimney sweep to pay the bills. She was on her bike and she rode like an absolute maniac. Henry had trouble keeping up with her—and he was in a car.

  And yet, he was utterly captivated by her recklessness, the way she darted in and out of traffic, flung herself around corners, her tires sending up strings of slush. Henry wished that Marla could see him now: a make-believe firefighter running red lights in pursuit of a sexy, slightly soused chimney sweep. Marla who was always saying how “risk averse” he was. (“Not risk averse,” he told her. “Anti heartbreak. There’s a difference.”)

  Then Kate went down, hard, under the wheels of a passing bus. It happened so quickly Henry didn’t even have time to react, though, oddly, he was sort of reacting even as he thought this, mourning her death and the life together they had missed, the long, searching conversations and, maybe even more than that, the absolutely superb sex they might someday have had and he even began to cry a little, there in his unheated Honda, as he thought about the cute little babies, two or three of them at least, all with her nose, that they would never raise.

  BUT NO, THAT wasn’t it. She’d merely slipped past the bus. She was still alive—alive!—and wheeling onto a side street. He pulled up behind her and leapt out of the car.

  “I thought you’d been, that bus—”

  She was under the streetlamp, flushed, panting a little, ravishing.

  “I just like to let the drivers know who’s boss.” Kate grinned. “Besides, you’re a firefighter, right? You know all that paramedics stuff. Mouth-to-mouth.” A light snow drifted down and fell on her hair and he wanted to tell her, right then, no, he wasn’t a firefighter, he was a sous-chef, a lonely, risk-averse sous-chef, but desire was surging through him now and the heart needed these things, these moments of grand drama. He thought: I will die if I don’t kiss her.

  He leaned in and kissed her, lightly. His fingertips touched her cheek. She tasted of gimlet, lime juice and the sharp bite of gin, and her eyes were still closed when she pulled away, as if she were in the midst of a happy dream.

  “I usually hate blind dates,” she whispered. “But this was really, you know …” and then she kissed him again, harder, and her belly came against his and now Henry was fairly certain he was going to hell.

  “What’s the matter?” she said. “Is it, I mean, Laurie told me about your wife. Is that what it is, Mike? Are you still grieving?”

  Henry sighed, elaborately and through his nose. He was really very unhappy. “Listen Kate, I’m not … I’m not the guy you were supposed to meet, this Mike guy. I’m just—how to explain this?—I’m just a guy who saw you and, you know, you looked so brave and pretty … wow. What a jerk. I’m sorry.” He began to consider how he would react if she slapped his face. Would he cry? Was she a good slapper?

  Kate stood there, swaying in the lamplight. “I know,” she said finally.

  “What?”

  “I know. Marla told me—”

  “Marla? What do you mean Marla told you …” But now Henry could see the situation. His sister had recruited this woman, or, God, maybe even hired her. Oh, this was pathetic, truly pathetic. Henry began clubbing himself on the head. “Did she pay you? Please tell me she didn’t pay you.”

  Kate seemed to be trying not to laugh. “Please stop hitting yourself,” she said, and grabbed his arm.

  “You’re not really a chimney sweep, are you?” Henry said quietly.

  “Bike messenger, actually.”

  “Do you think I’m loathsome and disgusting?”

  Kate looked at him again, her eyes green and quite serious now. “No, I like a man who can think on his feet. Let’s try another kiss. I mean it, Mike. I’ve never kissed a real firefighter.”

  LINCOLN, ARISEN

  Sleep hath its own world. —Byron

  ON MARCH 14, 1865, with the war drawing to a close and the cherry trees budding, Lincoln dispatches Under Secretary Dole to convey a message along to Douglass, inviting him to take tea at the Soldier’s Home.

  Douglass removes the sheet of foolscap from its dainty envelope. His hair, which in official portraits will take the appearance of a bald eagle perching atop his head, dips toward his brow. “Is this a prank, Dole?”

  “No sir. The president requests your company.”

  “My company?”

  “I should think that apparent.”

  Douglass frowns. Nearby, a clock tolls six. He looks about in agitation. “But I have an engagement this evening, a speech.”

  “I see.” Dole turns back to his carriage.

  “I haven’t time to cancel, sir. A hall has been rented; tickets issued.” Rather too ardently, Douglass grasps Dole’s sleeve. “Don’t you see? I should be most honored to take tea with our beloved president. It is only this duty which compels me …”

  Dole glances dubiously at Douglass’s hand and nods to his driver.

  “Perhaps on another occasion!” Douglass says. He is now half jogging alongside the carriage. “Perhaps—”

  “Of course,” murmurs Dole, as his hand draws the curtain shut.

  LINCOLN IS TIRED of nobility. It has been years since he felt a single breeze of contentment. This he blames on nobility. Rectitude exhausts his every part. Days wash past in a torrent of reports and decisions. He peers at memoranda by lamplight, until the letters dance about like pickaninnies. At night, strange dreams press themselves upon him. Upon waking, he glances around his darkened bedroom and feels dread settling onto his skin like black damp.

  I was happy once, he thinks: what on earth h
as happened?

  “SO THIS IS the famous Mississippi?”

  Lincoln nods, levers the flatboat toward the soft current at the river’s center. They have just passed Red Wing.

  His companion snorts.

  “Yes?”

  “I should have thought it wider.”

  “Give her a chance, Douglass. Rivers must be given a chance.”

  SENATOR POMEROY ESCORTS Douglass to the executive wing. Lincoln is in the antechamber to his office, on hands and knees, rooting among papers scattered on the floor. Pomeroy coughs discreetly. Lincoln rises, his legs seeming to unfold then unfold again, until he towers over Pomeroy, whose face shines like a small pink seashell.

  “Mr. President,” Pomeroy says, “may I present—”

  “I know who he is, Senator.” A forelock droops over Lincoln’s eyes. He quietly bids the others from the room and sets a hand on Douglass’s shoulder. “Seward has told me all about you. Sit down. I am glad to see you.”

  For the next hour, Douglass conveys the concerns of his race regarding military pay, commendations, the treatment of those captured by Confederates. Lincoln issues a pledge here, a vague promise there. Each man’s posture is stiff, cautious.

  There is a lengthy silence during which, it seems to Douglass, the entirety of a December dusk fills the jalousie windows behind Lincoln’s desk. “I have the sense we have met somewhere before,” Lincoln says. “Somewhere without all of this.” He gestures at the dark wainscoting of his office, the massive leather chairs.

  LINCOLN TAKES HIS shoes off and cuffs his trousers. His tufted, coppery feet give him the appearance of a forest thing, an ogre. He stares at Douglass. “Take off that ridiculous garb,” he says. “It is hot enough to melt a rail tie.”

  Douglass unbuttons his waistcoat, untabs the collar, folds them crisply. He removes his cuff links—a gift from the New England Freedmen Association—and scans the wooden deck, shading his eyes. “Have you no chifforobe?”

  DOUGLASS IN FANEUIL HALL. He stares at the puff pastry brought to him by Garrison. The cream of the abolitionist movement swirls around him: young men in golden spectacles, women in elaborate hoop dresses. Well-meaning folk agog at his capacity for speech. He pokes at the pastry, his finger sinking in. A great many people seem to want to talk to him at once.