The Complete Short Fiction of Charles L. Grant, Volume IV: The Black Carousel

by Charles L. Grant

  He knew the look.

  He knew the woman.

  He fumbled out his wallet, looked at the check, and dropped a bill over it.

  She didn’t move.

  He grabbed a french fry from Flory’s plate and jammed it into his mouth as he pushed out of the booth.

  She didn’t move.

  A step away, a step back; he leaned over the table and said, “Changed my mind, get the hell away.”

  She didn’t move.

  When he left, yanking the door open and looking back with a scowl because he didn’t want to, she was still there, and Johnny and Brenda were still there as well, slow dancing alone in the middle of the floor.

  He didn’t go to the carnival. The sight of all those people crowding around at the entrance, a sign tacked to the arch telling them only a few days left, soured his mood further, so he went to the library instead, read and didn’t see the words, flipped through magazines and didn’t see the pictures, finally went to the park where he sat by the pond. Beneath a tree. Flipping pebbles into the water.

  Tears made an effort, but he shook them back, not really knowing why. He should cry, damnit. Hell, he had a right to cry. He had just turned away by his own stupidity one of the few friends he had left who could still do him some good. Flory was a saint and he had goddamn stoned her.

  A fist pressed to his brow, the other one smacking his knee.

  Why was it so hard anymore?

  After all these years, it ought to get easier; it sure ought to get simpler.

  Why was it so hard?

  Johnny used to talk about paying your dues. You learned, you worked hard, with your own two hands you built your reputation, it didn’t matter where, and these were your dues. So Jesus Christ, hadn’t he paid enough? Would he still be paying when they dropped him in his grave?

  “That’s not right,” his wife had told him, back there at the house so long ago, before she’d tried to leave. “You think that, it means you figure the world owes you just because you’re alive.”

  “No, Ronnie, that’s wrong.”

  Nearly a head shorter than he, thin despite all the food she put away, chestnut hair more often than not wrapped in a red net so the wind wouldn’t ruin what she’d taken all day to put together. Which wasn’t, by then, one hell of a lot.

  “It’s right,” she insisted, and picked a speck of tobacco off her lower lip. “Johnny’s talking through his hat. Dues don’t exist except for those who need excuses.”

  “Oh?” He had been a real smartass back then, carrying a leather briefcase, wearing three-piece pin-striped suits and shoes shined every morning, working with figures, making people money in a brokerage firm on Centre Street. “Then what does?”

  She had never really understood, had never quite been able to grasp the fact that the figures he brought home with him weren’t related in any way to the figures on his paycheck; not understanding when he tried to explain that the numbers he talked about weren’t his numbers at all

  They got by.

  “C’mon, Ronnie, if I don’t have to pay my dues so we can have some economic security and we won’t have to starve in our old age, what the hell does exist, huh?”

  For the first time in years, her face softened despite the fact that he’d ended up shouting, and behind the pale lipstick, the eye shadow, the blush, he saw her the way she was when she wasn’t being Mrs. Kalb — eyes to sleep sweetly in, a smile to lie gently in, a way of stroking the back of his hand the way she crooned to the children when they were babies and sick.

  But somewhere along the line, somewhere back there in the late payment of bills and the deals made with creditors and the time they had nearly lost the car to the bank, that woman began to sink and the other one had emerged. It didn’t make any difference that no store, no credit card, no lender, had ever been cheated; it didn’t matter that eventually everyone got their cup of his blood. She sank. She surfaced.

  Ronnie died.

  Ronnie was born.

  “You going to tell me or are you just going to stand there like a lump?”

  She stubbed the cigarette out in a saucer on the kitchen counter and leaned back, palm to her chin, elbow cradled in her other hand.

  “Hanging on,” she said at last. A shrug. “What the hell else can you do?”

  “You could pull yourself up.”

  A smile sweet and sour. “To do that, you’d have to let go.”

  Right, he thought bitterly as he watched a pair of squirrels chase each other around the pond, scaring the ducks into the middle, making a couple of kids on the other side roar with laughter; right.

  So he worked harder, made more money, and the day after he turned forty, she left him.

  Or at least, he thought with grim satisfaction, she gave it a good try.

  The squirrels paused in front of him, tails up and quivering. Then one bolted and the other followed, and he heard them soon after climbing the tree at his back, chattering, scrabbling, chattering again.

  The water darkened.

  He peered through the branches, shading his eyes; the overcast had thickened.

  Oh lord, he thought, licking his lips nervously; oh lord, it’s gonna rain.

  In the last hour of the dead, he stood alone on the porch, fully dressed. The sky was still cloudy, the wind still damp, the cat crouched on the glider and growling low in its throat as shadows drifted across the lawn, wove dark patterns between the flowers, approached but did not come near the unlighted house. They never came near. They were never allowed.

  He watched them without expression. Not shadows at all, not really; disturbances of the air that made things slowly turn, that made things shift, that confused and blurred vision until shapes were created, and forms, and figures.

  Not shadows at all.

  I tried, he thought dejectedly, knowing they would listen; a hundred times I tried to explain, but this time Flory got mad. My fault, I suppose, but she didn’t have to walk out. Damn woman. Thinks she’s so goddamn smart, got all that education, read all them books, thinks she knows more than I do about what I know, figures she can put a baby bandage on it and kiss it and make it better and it will all go away, but she doesn’t know anything, Jesus Christ, she don’t know and she damn well won’t bother to listen because what the hell, I’m an old man, right?, I don’t know shit from shinola, I’m losing my grip, I got that disease whatever the hell you call it, it rots your brain so you can’t even shit by yourself anymore, can’t remember your kid’s name, so why should she pay attention to someone like me when someone like me don’t even know what’s going on in the world, not like her, not like her books, hell, no, she’s just too good, been screwing around with me all this time, probably writing one of those paper things shrinks gotta write to get famous or rich or get a promotion or whatever it is she’ll get from pretending all this time she was my friend, I’m her goddamn second father and she probably left him too, probably left him lying in a hospital dying of one damn thing or another, calling for her while she’s out telling other people how to run their lives with fancy words that ain’t nothing but damn good common sense.

  The hell with it.

  The wind strengthened.

  He checked the dining room window, but he didn’t see any light. She hadn’t woken up, she hadn’t come down, she was still asleep up there all alone while he was down here, talking to his damn self and trying to hold on. Hold on. That’s all he had to do until her goddamn kids finally saw the goddamn light. Hold on. Then they’d go away and she wouldn’t think he was crazy.

  But at least it wasn’t raining.

  At least the shapes and forms and figures out there weren’t even shadows.

  Count your lucky stars, Kayman old boy, count your lucky stars even if you can’t see them.

  That afternoon, Estelle decided to go to the market to get some things for the larder. He knew she really didn’t need to, there was plenty to eat in the cupboards and the fridge, but he had stuck around the house all day, feeling
guilty about his meeting with Flory, wanting to do something to atone. But there was nothing to do. The screens had all been patched where needed, the back stoop repaired, the lawn mowed just a few days ago, the garage cleaned out the week before — the easiest job these days since they no longer had a car. So he followed her, making her laugh at his earnest pleas for work, making her impatient when he tried to do her chores as well.

  “That does it,” she announced in exasperation when he asked, practically begged, if he could help clean the silverware. “You’re driving me nuts. I’m going to the store.”

  “Good idea,” he agreed. “I’ll go with you.”

  Immediately, her hand slapped and clung to his chest.

  “You can go, but you can’t stay with me or I’ll probably end up braining you with a pork chop.”

  “Okay.” He held up his hands. “Okay, no problem.”

  As he hurried upstairs to brush his hair and shave, he caught a glimpse of her expression, and it almost changed his mind. She was still worried. But it wasn’t about herself. Him. It was about him. He knew that look, knew it as well as he knew the touch of her lips. He had seen it for nearly twenty years whenever he was ill, whenever he injured himself doing carpentry or plumbing, whenever he slept too long or didn’t sleep enough or ate too many antacids or too many aspirins. He knew that look, and in knowing it knew that sometime that morning, Flory must have called and told her everything.

  He cut himself shaving, the first time in a decade.

  For the first time in a decade he didn’t check the hairs left in the brush.

  “Hon, are you okay?” she called from the foyer.

  Eyes closed, hands gripping the edge of the sink, feet well apart, breathing in, breathing out, shaping his rage into something he could handle.

  “Down in a minute. Gotta make myself beautiful.”

  “Damnit, Kay, I’m an old woman, I haven’t got the time.”

  In spite of himself, he chuckled, laughed, practically skipped out of the bathroom and down the stairs. Grabbed her in his arms and kissed her. Kissed her again when she gasped and stared in amazement.

  “What . . . ?”

  “Ask me no questions,” he said, leading her out the door, “I’ll tell you no lies.”

  “When pigs fly,” she said, and waved when a car honked at the curb.

  He stiffened.

  “Kayman,” she said, voice low and warning. “My hip’s giving me trouble today. The rain coming, I guess. So I called Norma for a ride. Don’t you dare say a word.”

  That was an easy promise, and he gave it with as much good grace as he could manage. It was hard, though; lord, it was hard. Norma Hobbs, for a schoolteacher, was about the most unpleasant woman he had ever met in his life. She lived two houses down, by herself, and had been alone since her husband died, in his twenties, of cancer. To be honest, he wasn’t so sure about that; he figured it was her vinegary temper that had really done him in; and the tart sting of her tongue. He pitied the children who were stuck in her class.

  Yet she was fine with Estelle. Wonderful, in fact, and for that reason, if no other, he tolerated her presence.

  “Big of you,” Johnny said. He sat in the backseat with him, blowing smoke out the window behind Norma’s head.

  “Shut up,” Kayman grumbled. He was in no mood for chatter.

  “And the horse you rode in on,” Johnny replied, pouting. He fussed with his tweed jacket. “I just wanted to tell you something, that’s all.”

  “Don’t want to hear it.”

  The silence made him turn.

  Johnny stared out the window, rocking easily as the car took the first corner and they passed the hospital.

  Kayman rubbed his hands together.

  This wasn’t right.

  Never, ever, was Johnny at a loss for words; and never, ever, had he offered any information. He came, alone or with Brenda, and they argued and laughed and bickered and remembered. It was a routine. It was right.

  This wasn’t.

  “What?” he asked softly. ‘Johnny, I’m sorry. What?”

  Johnny’s head swiveled around slowly.

  “Damn,” Norma said, “I think it’s starting to rain.”

  ‘Just spitting a little,” said Estelle. “It’ll make your hair grow.”

  The teacher chuckled.

  “What, Johnny?”

  “They came,” he said at last.

  Kayman frowned. “What? Who came?”

  The cigarette pointed at the drops of water skidding along the window. “They did.”

  “Johnny, you’re not making sense.”

  A teardrop in Johnny’s right eye, shimmering, growing, became a raindrop on the glass that slipped out of sight.

  Kayman reached out, passed a hand through the place where his best friend had been. “Johnny?”

  A hand touched his shoulder, and he yelped, threw himself back in the seat, a hand before his face as if warding off a curse.

  “Kayman!”

  He blinked, felt his heart try to leap from his chest, and stared through the window. “I’m okay,” he said.

  “You most certainly are not.”

  “You startled me.”

  “You were talking to yourself,” Norma said, maneuvering into the parking lot behind the theater. “Gotta watch that stuff, Kayman, they’ll take you away and Estelle will have to move in with me.”

  “Kayman?”

  He looked without turning his head. “I’m okay, I said.” Looked away. People on the sidewalk, no umbrellas yet, none of the cars using their wipers. When the car stopped, Estelle immediately got out, pulled up the seat back, and leaned in. Pale. Frightened eyes, don’t-leave-me-alone eyes.

  A smile and wink only meant to be reassuring, only made her suspicious. He winked again and pushed forward until she had to give way. Once on his feet he gave her shoulders a quick hug and told her not to spend them into oblivion, they weren’t exactly laying in for a blizzard.

  Norma led her away, chatting rapidly, clearly not concerned about his health or state of mind.

  Estelle looked back once, just before they crossed the street.

  When a van passed between them, he put a hand on the car roof to brace himself

  they came

  All right, he thought; all right, it’s all right, he’s just mad you snapped at him, he’ll be back. They always came back. Not all at one time, though. Not even in groups. But they came, some more than others, the rest of them waiting until he wanted to talk. So what did Johnny mean? Of course they came.

  One or two at a time.

  His face dampened from the drizzle, and he wiped it off hard, crossed Chancellor Avenue and walked up toward the Brass Ring. It wasn’t too early. A drink would calm him down. Maybe Brenda would be there. Johnny, too. A shudder that made some of the pedestrians glance at him, look away. Ronnie wouldn’t be there. At the Crow yesterday was the first time he’d seen her in over a year. He seldom wanted to. She never spoke, never told him how she was. She wouldn’t be there.

  God, he hoped she wouldn’t be there.

  She wasn’t.

  A sparse crowd, a few at the bar, a few at the tables in back watching a lackluster game of darts. He chose the bar, the stool closest to the wall and near the door. Nigel didn’t ask; he brought over a glass of beer, gave him a nod, moved away. Kayman drank slowly, and slowly dammed the panic he’d felt flooding the car. The air-conditioning helped, lifting the muggy heat from his back, raising gooseflesh on his arms until he rubbed it away. Then he let himself look around, as he twisted until he could lean against the wall. The bar was a square horseshoe, and around the corner, two stools down, a tall man in a white shirt, his jacket folded over the brass rail, lifted his empty glass for Nigel to refill. It was the man in the Cock’s Crow.

  Kayman grinned — it was Teddy Tarman from up on Devon Street, near the graveyard. A lot older than when seen from a distance, but not nearly as old as he. An electrician who had once helped Kayman rewire the
house, asking in return nothing but a new dining table Kayman had been pleased to make, and pleased to note, on a visit not too long ago, how well the man had tended it over the years.

  “On me,” he told Nigel when the refill was brought.

  “Thanks,” Tarman said. “What’s the occasion?”

  “Feeling good, that’s all.”

  “Ain’t gonna argue.”

  They talked baseball for a while, about the football training camps and how the new kids seemed to be, this and that and eventually speculated on the whereabouts of Casey Bethune, who had evidently flown the coop a couple of weeks ago. Rumor claimed murder and illicit sex, but rumor, Kayman claimed, was more bloodthirsty than real life. Tarman laughed, agreed, and grabbed his jacket. A thanks for the beer, a call to Nigel, and he was gone.

  Kayman’s smile died.

  Teddy Tarman.

  Why the hell hadn’t he remembered the name before? Or the face? Anything?

  Swallow your pride, he ordered; don’t be a fool, swallow your pride.

  Before he lost his nerve, he paid for the drinks and hastened outside, paused when the heat grabbed him again, then walked quickly up to High Street, turned the comer, and stopped at a doorway between the piano shop and a clothing store. He’d never been here in all this time. Usually he met Flory in the park or at the Crow, a couple of times in the Brass Ring. But never in her office. What if she had a patient and couldn’t talk to him? What if she didn’t have a patient and still wouldn’t talk?

  He’d leave a note.

  All he wanted was to offer an apology.

  Oh lord, he thought as he reached for the knob; oh lord.

  The door was locked.

  He tried it again, shaded his eyes and peered in, but all he could see were the stairs leading up, blending into dark before they reached the landing. There was no note, no explanation. He stepped back to the curb and looked up at her window, hoping to find a clue. And in finding none slapped his hands uselessly against his legs and walked off, away from Centre Street, not wanting to think and unable to stop it — Estelle and Ronnie, the day the office had let him go because they were cutting back and he wasn’t a senior man in spite of all his time, the day he had sold his first piece of furniture — a small foyer table in the style of Queen Anne, the way people began leaving him once he started getting old.