King of Cards

by Ward, Robert

  In a room warmly painted with Mediterranean blue walls, the floor of which was covered with a rich, thick blue carpet, Billy McConnell sat in an old-fashioned overstuffed chair—the perfect listening chair. At his side was a little table and lamp, and on the table was a glass of milk and a plate of chocolate chip cookies. And on the wall in front of him was my father’s painting of the boy in the lonely castle.

  We sat in the adjoining room, watching through the two-way window. Billy sat completely still. He seemed not even tempted by the cookies. His blue eyes were as vacant as any store dummy’s, and his mouth fell open. The room went dark for a second, but then suddenly from the ceiling there was a blue light that beautifully illuminated the painting.

  Jeremy moved to the microphone that he’d set up in our room. He spoke in a deep, soothing voice.

  “Once upon a time,” he said, “there was a young prince named William who lived all alone in a castle. It was a beautiful and safe place, made of heavy stones, but it was lonely because of the moat in front of it. And in that moat was a horrible moat monster who would eat anyone who tried to come see Prince William. Oh, this monster was ugly. He had huge, gaping teeth and a mouth that could stretch so wide that it could eat an entire horse. All day Prince William sat by himself in that tower, and he felt deeply, deeply alone. More than anything in the world, he yearned for a friend, but no one ever dared visit the castle for fear of the moat monster. Until one bright summer day, a kindly old shoemaker came walking out of the woods.”

  As Jeremy said these words, the light went out on the first painting and a second painting was lit. In this one we could clearly see the old shoemaker, with his white beard and little wooden box. He looked up at the boy in the tower and he seemed to be doing a little jig. Jeremy continued with the story:

  “Prince William was happy. At last a friend had come to visit. The old man was so happy, for he too had been lonely. He felt so good that he performed a happy little dance and sang a song:

  My name is Joe the Shoemaker.

  I’m happy as can be.

  For at last I have a friend

  To share my life with me.

  “As he sang, Old Joe the Shoemaker started to wade across the little moat. Little did he know about the dangers of the horrible moat monster. Prince William, the lonely little boy in the tower, was terrified. He knew that unless he yelled down to Old Joe, he would be eaten by the horrible moat monster. He tried to yell, tried with all his might, but he hadn’t spoken to anyone in so long he couldn’t get the words out of his mouth. What in the world could he do? If he didn’t yell ‘Watch out!’ Old Joe would be eaten by the horrible moat monster! Oh, he wanted to warn Joe, he really did, he had to find the courage to yell. He just had to!”

  The lights went out in the room, and we watched as Billy looked at the illuminated painting. I said a silent prayer, “Lord, let him respond. Please.” I looked over at Jeremy, who bit his knuckles and whose eyes bore a hole through the window.

  We waited for a minute, two … three … five, but there was no response. Billy sat as still as a corpse, his face registering a great, gaping blank.

  “I’m sorry,” Dr. Hergenroeder finally said. “I’m afraid it’s just not going to happen today.”

  “Let him stay in there for a while,” Jeremy said.

  “But he has to get back for his medication,” Dr. Hergenroeder said.

  “I don’t care about that,” Jeremy said. “He’s hearing it.

  I’m sure of it. Let him sit there. Take him back in fifteen minutes. Please.”

  She sighed deeply.

  “I have already broken my back in order to get you permission to try this,” she said.

  “I know, Margaret,” Jeremy said, pressing her hand. “And I have one more request for you. Play the tape of the story over again tomorrow at the exact same time.”

  “I don’t know if I can,” she said.

  “Please,” Jeremy said. “Once more, tomorrow.”

  “All right,” the doctor said. “I’ll make it happen somehow. I promise.”

  “Good,” Jeremy said, hugging her and kissing her forehead.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I know what this means to you.”

  “Yeah,” Jeremy said. “But it’s going to happen. You can count on it.”

  On the way back to Chateau Avenue, we nearly ran into the back of a streetcar.

  “How in the hell did you ever get my father to paint those pictures?” I said.

  “Easy. I paid him,” Jeremy said.

  “Out of what?” I said. “We’re just about broke.”

  “Right,” Jeremy said. “That’s why I paid him out of your salary.”

  “What?” I said. “Did it ever occur to you that I have to live off of that pathetic sum?”

  “Now think about it,” he said. “What expenses do you have? I mean you get all your food and chemical supplements at the house. Hell, you can live for free practically.”

  “You are impossible,” I said. “A total meddler. I swear to God. It’s impossible to deal with you. Completely impossible.”

  I shook my head and looked out the window, then thought of my father’s drawings, of the loving detail in them—the castle, the lonely boy. Back at the hospital, Raines had been suggesting that my father’s inspiration came from my own loneliness, a sweet thought, and maybe it was true. But the boy in the tower might have just as well been my father himself, waiting by the dock on old Pier 1 for his rough and tumble old dad, Cap, to sail home from the Chesapeake Bay. Yes, I thought that was the Fallon legacy from father to son, we gave birth and we loved one another, but only at a distance, never up close. I must have let out a long sigh, for Raines turned and looked at me expectantly.

  “I was just thinking,” I said. “Marriage didn’t work for my father, but I don’t know how he’ll make it being single either.”

  “He’s going to be okay,” Raines said. “Look, he’s already painting again. He’s ready for change. I don’t see that as so awful.”

  “No, of course not,” I snapped. “It’s not your family breaking up. You know I get pretty sick of your glib answers to things. ‘Change is good.’ ‘Let’s be happy.’ Well, are you fucking happy? Racing around like a maniac? Trying to be goddamned Jung and Freud and Rockefeller all rolled into one?”

  Raines put a large hand on my leg and squeezed.

  “Yes,” he said, “I’m happy. But you should know something. I didn’t get here by being a superficial asshole. Okay? I’ve got my scars, too, Tom. I’ve earned it.”

  “Yeah? Well, how? You know all about my past, about my parents. But you don’t tell me one damned thing about yourself.”

  “But you haven’t asked,” Raines said. “And as for the past, I don’t find it that inviting. You can assume it’s been filled with all the usual tragedies.”

  “That’s a cop-out,” I said. “You’re just trying to create some kind of mystique. The man of mystery.”

  “So what if I am?” Raines said. “Maybe that’s what interests me the most, reinventing myself.”

  I growled at that, but Raines laughed.

  “I’ll tell you this much, Tom, I don’t believe you get to know a person by all-night confessional sessions. I think the personality unravels like a strip of plastic cards. Different faces, different names at different times. I mean the whole idea of having one self, having to be one person, is insulting. Still, if it really matters to you, someday I’ll tell you about the Raines clan. Meanwhile, let’s just keep moving. We’ll discover whatever’s important along the way, huh?”

  “Sure,” I said. “If we’re not wiped out by our charming new partner.”

  “Don’t worry,” Raines said. “We have the Catholic University photos in the bag and two more schools lined up—Western Maryland College and Goucher. We’ll be able to pay off Rudy A. And Billy is going to come around, I know it.”

  “You really think so?” I said. “You know there are some things you can’t just manipulate
and will into being. You realize that, don’t you?”

  He smiled very sweetly and shook his head. “No,” he said, “I don’t. Now let’s get back to the house. We’ve got cards to deliver!”

  He punched me in the arm in a conspiratorial way, and once again I found myself unable to be mad at him. “Right,” I said. “Let’s go.”

  We smelled the burning plastic as we walked up the porch steps.

  “Oh, God,” I said.

  “Hurry, my boy.”

  We ran through the living room, crashed into each other as we both tried to open the cellar door, and half fell down the steps.

  There in the Hole we were witness to a terrible sight.

  The laminating machine had been left on for far too long and had overheated. There was a smouldering, noxious chemical smell and the entire room was filled with a great twisted, snakelike swirl of half-melted plastic, inside of which were burnt and charred cards. And even as we watched in horror, there were stacks of other cards that were starting their way through the two steaming, smoking rolls of melting, bubbling plastic that awaited them.

  Sitting sound asleep on the chair next to the laminator was none other than that reliable, pipe-smoking professional, Tim Donnolly.

  “Jesus Christ Almighty,” I said, rushing to wake him up. “What in God’s name have you done, Donnolly?”

  As I rushed toward him, I heard someone coming in upstairs and made out the excited and hysterical voices of Eddie and the Babe. A second later, I heard them running across the floor and down the cellar steps.

  “What happened?”

  “Oh Jesus …”

  I walked closer to Donnolly and the twisted, plastic spitting laminator with its smoking cards. I pushed my hand down on the stop button, and with a great groan, the machine ground to a halt. I looked down at the still sleeping Donnolly.

  “Donnolly, you asshole, wake the fuck up! Do you hear me, you idiot? Wake up!”

  My mouth was now only inches away from his face. He half opened his right eye and looked up at me with a confused gaze.

  “Hey, hey, hey,” he mumbled in a happy stoned way. A little spittle formed on the side of his mouth.

  It was then that I saw the prescription bottle. It was sitting next to him on the floor. I reached down and picked it up and saw the magic words. Percodan … 20 capsules … 50 milligrams.

  I wrenched off the cap, pulled it open, and shook the pills into my palm. There were only ten of them left.

  That’s when I slugged him, knocking him backward, head over ass, into the mass of curling, smoking plastic that lay behind him.

  “You worthless fucking junkie!” I screamed. I fell on him and started hitting him in the face and would have beaten him unconscious if Eddie and Jeremy hadn’t pulled me off.

  I pushed them both back and screamed again, this time at Eddie.

  “The guy’s a junkie. And you knew it! You knew it and you hired him anyway!”

  Eddie looked furtively from side to side, then opened his palms.

  “He swore to me he’d cleaned up,” he said. “I was giving him a shot. I’m sorry!”

  “Sorry?” I said. “Sorry? You’ve finished us. Don’t you see that? Get him out of here before he O.D.’s.”

  I reached down and pulled the nodding Donnolly to his feet.

  He looked at me with crossed eyes and gave a happy baby gurgle of joy.

  “Look at all the cards,” he said. “Look at all the cards …”

  It took all my restraint not to kick in his head.

  “Get him out, now!” I screamed.

  That’s when I turned and saw Val, Lulu Hard well, and Johnny Martello standing at the foot of the steps.

  There was a long, long pause as Johnny surveyed the surrealistic writhing snake of smoldering, twisted plastic that covered the entire moldy basement.

  “Hey, look at what we got here,” he said. “Looks like somebody was sleeping onna job.”

  “What happened?” Val said.

  “A little accident,” Jeremy said, but his voice was for once not filled with optimism. It was the closest to true despair I had ever heard from him.

  “A little accident?” Johnny said. “You guys are very, very funny. This is the end, finito. You don’t get the money from Catholic U., which means you jerks don’t meet your payment. From now on we own Identi-Card and believe me, assholes, we will run it right!”

  I said nothing, for there seemed to be nothing left to say. As much as I hated the fat, balding toad-faced Martello, what he said seemed to be the truth. We were finally, irrevocably finished.

  I looked over at Jeremy. Val looked over at Jeremy. Lulu Hardwell looked over at Jeremy. Eddie and the Babe looked over at Jeremy.

  He stood stock-still, looking over the smoking wreckage.

  Then he smiled and looked at me.

  “My boy,” he said. “Are you with me?”

  I felt my heart both leap and die simultaneously. What last-ditch madness was he going to try?

  “You know I am,” I said.

  “Good, because we need to make a little phone call. Right now.”

  Hello, Catholic University, Dean’s Office.”

  “I’d like to speak to Mother Superior please.”

  “May I tell her what this is regarding?”

  “Yes, of course. This is Thomas Fallon. I’m calling from Identi-Card in Baltimore. It’s very urgent.”

  “I’ll put you right through.”

  There was a long pause, and I turned and looked at the others who were watching me with great eyes, while next to me Val held my hand. In the background, I was aware of the little green pea eyes of Johnny Martello, looking on with smug satisfaction, waiting as his kind were born to do—for others to fail, so that they might refresh themselves by dining on the corpse.

  “Hello?”

  “Hello, Mother Superior? This is Thomas Fallon of Identi-Card Products. I’m afraid we have some bad news.”

  “Yes? Is it regarding the cards? Because it’s essential we have them, Mr. Fallon.”

  “Yes, ma’am, of course it is. You know we here at Identi-Card are absolutely dedicated, even fanatical, about getting the cards to their owners on time. But I’m afraid this time out we are going to need a little reshoot.”

  “A reshoot? Why on earth? Mr. Fallon, I must tell you that if you do not get the cards here on time you are in breach of contract.”

  “I’m aware of that, Sister, and I would just like to say that I can offer no excuses. Mr. Raines wouldn’t like it if I did, and I feel that we must carry on in the spirit that he has established.”

  There was a slight pause.

  “What do you mean, Mr. Fallon? What’s happened?”

  “I am afraid I don’t know what you mean Mother Superior.”

  “You’re speaking of Jeremy, Mr. Raines, in the past tense. Has something happened to him?”

  “No, of course not. He’s, ah, still with us.”

  “Still with us? Now listen, Mr. Fallon, Jeremy Raines happens to be a personal friend of mine as well as a business associate.”

  “Well, I know Jeremy wouldn’t want to worry you, Mother Superior.”

  “But I demand to know if something untoward has happened to him.”

  “Well, I want to tell you. I really do. But his last words to me when they were taking him away in the ambulance were …”

  “Ambulance? My God! Tell me—is he—”

  “His last words were ‘Get the cards to Catholic U. on time. We can’t disappoint Mother Superior!’ “

  I could hear some heavy breathing now, very heavy breathing.

  “Now listen, Mr. Fallon, I understand that you gave your word, but as a representative of the Holy Church, I command you to tell me what has happened to Jeremy Raines.”

  “I don’t know what to do. On the one hand there is my oath to my friend and employer, who this minute awaits an operation on his brain, and …”

  “On his brain! Now no more nonsense, Mr. Fal
lon. Tell me.”

  “Well, seeing as you are a representative of the Church, I suppose it wouldn’t be too terribly bad if I broke my confidence. It happened out on Route 40. Jeremy was on his way in our new Identi-Card truck with his load of cards for you, when this drunken Oriole fan, a redneck well digger from down in Marlboro, a guy named Dwayne Spiggot, came careening across the center divider and hit him head on. You know it’s so ironic. There was supposed to be another driver this morning, but Jeremy felt such a special bond with you that he insisted on driving the cards himself and now he lies there in the hospital awaiting a massive brain operation. An operation that may never come!”

  “Never come? Why on earth not?”

  “Funds, Sister. Jeremy has plowed all our profits back into the business, so we’re cash poor, except for the Charity Fund, which he won’t let us touch.”

  “What of medical insurance?”

  “I’m afraid he let it lapse. You know how it is. He’s so busy thinking of others that he barely has time to pay attention to what he considers such mundane details.”

  There was a long pause.

  I felt pins and needles coursing through my arms.

  “All right, young man. Will you assure me that you’ll get the cards reshot?”

  “Yes, ma’am, but I don’t follow your train of thought.”

  “My train of thought is as follows, Mr. Fallon. I will release to you the seven thousand dollars that Catholic University owes your company, so that Jeremy can have his operation. But you must never speak of this with anyone and all the cards have to be reshot this weekend.”

  “Sister, I must confess something to you. I am not a religious man, but this act of faith and generosity will make me take stock of my spiritual situation, I assure you.”

  “That’s good to know, Mr. Fallon. I’ll send the money to you via messenger, and I want you to know that this evening the sisters here at the university will be saying a special novena for Mr. Raines.”

  “God bless you, Mother Superior!”

  We hung up the phone simultaneously, and when I turned around and faced my friends, a huge cheer resounded around the room. Val hugged me so hard around the neck she cut off what little airway I had left, and I slumped heavily into the big chair next to the embosser. Perspiration dripped off my face as though someone had put a sponge on my head, and I heard my heart beating triple time through my drenched shirt.