Gargoyles

by Bill Gaston

  But drink it we did. Most of it, in fact, between five of us, until later when three older guys shouldered in and hogged the rest. We sat around like calm professional drinkers and bragged about the deed, and as we got into it we took turns trying to come up with the face that best showed the Gooks tasting our piss, which had us falling off our logs and almost pissing ourselves. In a quieter moment I found myself remembering what I’d seen through the Gooks’ kitchen window while we were in the carport. I wasn’t sure what had struck me about the inside of the house. Lit by the streetlight, the pots and pans were somehow a little different. It all looked very clean. The one odd thing was a picture I could barely make out on the dining-room wall. It was of a giant human hand, very lifelike with the wrinkles and nails and the rest, but shooting out of the hand were these wonderful curling flames, some pink, others green. It was like a photograph but with great special effects. Otherwise there was an odd calm to the house, a stillness I found very likeable. Maybe it was what all empty houses had, I didn’t know. Maybe it was my thief’s adrenalin. But the peculiar stillness of that house felt welcoming. It made me like the Gooks. Naturally I said nothing about this to my friends, either in the carport or at the drunken bonfire. They, and especially MacIver, didn’t go in for details.

  The wine hit us hard. We were soon screaming and laughing, and before too long puking. I twisted an ankle badly, and the next morning had no idea how. All of us felt hellish for a day. Except for MacIver it was our first major hangover. And in that ragged, godless, nauseated state we found ourselves blaming the Gooks and saying things like, Stupid house. Shit wine. Dumb bastards.

  School was over now. Trying out an old skateboard, I was coasting empty-headed down the slight slope toward the Green House, and could see Mr. Gook sitting in his front yard in a chair. My feelings about them had levelled off: it wasn’t their wine but our own gulpings that had made us sick; since seeing into their house I felt I knew them a little; in general I felt sorry for their foreignness enough to want to let them be. In fact I hadn’t even taken part in MacIver’s latest prank, though it was one of my favourites, the dog shit on the doorstep thing. The idea was to collect fresh doggy-do in a paper bag, lay it at their door, ring the bell, light the bag on fire and run. With any luck you get to see a guy stamp a fire out and get shit on his slippers in the process. In any case, I heard it didn’t go well at the Gooks’ — the top of the bag had burned away and gone out by the time Mr. Gook came to the door. He just stooped and looked into the bag, scanned the area for faces, then slammed the door.

  Skateboard noise made Mr. Gook look my way as I rolled up. I saw he’d been scribbling notes onto a bunch of papers and charts on his lap. Again, the backyard would have been the place for this sort of thing. But what the hell, I thought, and waved to him. He was looking right at me after all, and I felt magnanimous. He answered with a lifting of a couple of fingers. Clearly a case of an adult dismissing a child.

  This response made me angry. I don’t know what I’d expected. Some kind of kowtowing. Something goofy or overly friendly. He was an immigrant and this was my neighbourhood. That he was allowed to live here because of my tolerance, my permission, was an absurd thought, but that was exactly how I felt, how we all felt.

  He studied my skateboard as if he’d never seen one before. Then he looked up to my face again. He studied that too. His eyes were remarkable things, the kind of silver-blue colour that seems deep and empty and tries to pull you in. The eyes made the rest of his wrinkled face secondary. His gaze was matter-of-fact, one eyebrow up a little. You could tell he gazed at things like this, at anything I had to offer, a thousand times a day. My anger fell to embarrassment, for his eyes made clear that he was not only an adult but an adult way smarter than me.

  Maybe they’d learned something because they held the next barbecue in the back. This part of the property was surrounded by a fence plus lots of bushes and trees, so we hardly had to hide as we watched them.

  It was a smaller gathering. The old man with the weird pipe sat across from one of the black widows. There was one couple the Gooks’ age (it was the weeping man, sober this time) and the kid with the jean jacket. He wore sneakers, but the same hick-brown pants. For the most part they sat around in chairs, sipped and talked in their dog-language. A whole chicken had been plopped spread-eagle on the grill. We knew there was no way they were going to get that chicken done without an electric spit. Mrs. Gook got up from time to time to turn the bird, but it kept rolling back onto one of its flat spots.

  In a minute we were bored, so Al Cody started things off, flicking a small pine cone into the yard. After a strategic delay one of us would toss another, each cone more daring, landing closer and closer. I flicked a high wild one that arced and hung deliciously. We ducked when it ticked off the old man’s shoulder. He turned and regarded some branches that weren’t exactly overhead but close enough to satisfy him. Next MacIver tossed a deliberate shot that fell into the barbecue. We hunched and hissed, “Oh shit,” while all heads turned to look. Some scanned the sky for passing birds. Mr. Gook was staring expressionless in our direction. But he didn’t move, and soon they were talking again.

  “Fuck it,” Cody whispered. “Spray and run.” We each gathered a handful of cones and climbed carefully to our haunches. We checked to see if everyone was ready. Cody signalled with a quick dip of head and then we were all grunting, throwing, and leaping away. I’d seen MacIver scoop up the rock and now I heard the crack off a head and looking back saw Mrs. Gook go down on one knee. “Asshole,” I hissed as I sprinted. If anyone chased, they were no match for young men who knew, like rats know sewers, the secret veins of their neighbourhood.

  I never told anyone, but several times over the following weeks I went by the Green House at night to stare in their carport window while they were asleep. Streetlight got in just enough to show me that festive interior, and in particular the flaming hand picture on the far wall. I always got that good feeling. I thought of the word “haven.” The Gooks had made themselves a haven here.

  I avoided the Green House for a while after the coning, but I couldn’t help passing it one day when Mr. Gook was out in his front yard. I meant to speed by, but couldn’t resist watching him, bent and scribbling over his papers like that. Coming closer, I saw he marked a chart with coloured pencils. A photo album lay open on the lawn at his feet and he’d lean out to study it before marking his chart. What sort of work? Maybe he researched his relatives, his family tree. Squinting harder at the album I made out only abstract shapes and swirls of colour.

  I’d slowed almost to a stop. Maybe it was the sight he made: under a perfect bright day, under a noble shade tree, this wise-looking man examined colourful things. We had just heard about the Greeks in school, and I had an image of Socrates teaching in a place like this.

  I waved. He had to have seen it. And I said hi, not loud but loud enough. He made no sign. So I hurried on, embarrassed. How dare a Green House Gook be a snob. Ready to dismiss him as a dumb shit, I considered options. Deafness, for one. Or his scholarly concentration blinded him to all else. Or perhaps he suspected me to be one of the tormenting hoodlums, and was doing me a kindness by turning the other cheek. I chose this last one.

  I went along with the break-in for two reasons and they were both good. I’ve thought a lot about it since and I still think they were good. The first reason was selfish — I wanted to check the house out more. The second was only good — I wanted to protect the house from Dave MacIver.

  We were so nervous. Even in the planning of it we fell to whispers, and any jokes came out stuttered and fake. No one really wanted to do it, but we all had to sound like we did. That’s not true — MacIver was eager.

  We knew now that Sunday was their night out. We gathered at the backyard fence. Besides MacIver and me, only Al Cody and Bobby Kerry had shown up. We watched Mr. rev the car until Mrs. appeared bearing a casserole and basket of bread. Off they went. We hopped the fence and, since it was the heig
ht of summer, we had our pick of half-open windows. We chose the breakfast nook.

  MacIver went in first so I made sure I followed. We’d agreed not to break or steal anything big enough to bring us real trouble, but one look at MacIver there in the kitchen told me to watch him closely. Hunched, breathing hard, and eyeing everything faster and faster as if he might now own it all, he seemed an animal in some grim paradise.

  I admit to feeling a sort of euphoria myself. It was wonderful in there, so cool, so dim, the bright colours standing out sharply. I felt so full of oxygen I no longer had to breathe. Again, maybe this was the adrenalin of thieves in a dark new place. But I felt acquainted with this house. I felt like the house.

  The last in, Bobby Kerry no sooner touched the floor than he panicked and yelled, “They’re here!” He scrambled back out and was gone, leaving just us three.

  Following MacIver through the dining room, I stopped under the flaming hand. Dramatic up close, it was a photograph of a hand, surrounded by a rosy mist, with green flames curling out the fingertips.

  On the other wall was a blow-up of Disneyland, Mrs. Gook arm in arm with Scrooge McDuck, her smile girlish as could be, her wide-set eyes half-closed and teary. Under the picture a bookcase held mostly dictionaries — English-Polish, English-French, English-Russian, English-Hebrew — and two books had a special place: Welcome to Canada and Canadian Fact Book.

  A fiercely whispered “Just this” made me turn to see MacIver take a knife in a jewelled scabbard off the mantel. More a sword than a knife, its curve made a quarter moon and reminded me of Oriental barbarians, who could slash with it, not stab. MacIver worked it into his belt and before I could say a thing he whirled at me and stiffened up tall and said, “It’s my birthday.” We both knew it wasn’t his birthday. His eyes were crazy.

  I turned away, a host who’d lost control, as MacIver sprayed two decks of cards, a violent shower of squares, around the room. This had Cody giggling like a girl. I decided I’d be the last one out and clean up as best I could. But I couldn’t stand here and watch.

  I found the door to the downstairs. Descending to one immense basement room, lit only by dusk through two window wells, I flicked the switch. I saw right away that while the upstairs was hers, this was his. The walls were grey gyprock. The floor was still cement. The greyness was overpowering. Two walls displayed group portraits, his family, I decided. Stepping closer, I saw bearded men and sour women, in severe unsmiling rows. All were black and white, but from the looks of their clothes and the landscape, colour film wouldn’t have added much. A wedding picture of the two of them hung in a special place, it too a drab grey. They looked frightened.

  A third wall displayed certificates and diplomas, most in foreign lettering but some not. The Indiana Center for Psychic Studies. The Parapsychology Institute of America. The Kirlian Institute Pioneer’s Award. All to H. H. Karmapov.

  The fourth wall was a giant black felt curtain, dense and light-proof. I pulled it aside to find another room, a developing room with trays and bottles of chemicals and, in the middle, resembling a drill-press, harnessed on poles to point down, what looked to be an odd black camera.

  I felt like I’d walked into a rainbow. The walls were jammed with pictures of hands, feet, leaves, flowers, all emitting flames and swirls of violet, gold, lime and rose. One single fingertip, enlarged three feet square, revealed its whirlpool of fingerprint, from the centre of which issued a needle-thin ray of crimson.

  I stared for I don’t know how long before I noticed the books, neat stacks and rows of The Kirlian Annual and Kirlian Photography. A single hardbound book had his name on the spine, just Karmapov. I plucked it out and thumbed through and saw in its pages the same leaves, hands, and feet that hung on these walls. One appeared to be a corpse’s hand, with nothing surrounding it but a kind of muddy mist. I found the dining-room picture in one of the full-page feature shots.

  I ran up the stairs. Mr. Karmapov was famous. Even MacIver would be amazed by this stuff. But in the kitchen I stopped, hearing their noises upstairs. A thud, wild laughter. At the foot of the stairs a bottle of perfume lay open, dripping heavy sweetness into the air. I didn’t dare show them the magical basement. I wanted them out of here entirely, out of Mr. Karmapov’s house.

  In the upstairs bedroom they’d pulled out drawers, it looked like MacIver had slashed into some pillows with his birthday knife, and Mr. Karmapov’s ties were cut in half and scattered. They’d found condoms and blown one up and tied it. The bathroom, where they were now, was strewn with Q-tips and toilet paper, and MacIver was lipsticking the mirror.

  “Jesus, we gotta go, we been here an hour,” I lied, trying to sound scared. I turned away in a hurry, took some fake pounding steps downstairs, then tiptoed back up and ducked into a guest room. In a minute Cody and MacIver descended. I started in the bedroom as quietly as I could, stuffing and putting back drawers, gathering snipped ties. I didn’t know what to do. Write him a note, apologizing? Pay him back in secret? I thought of running home for my dad’s ties. But I just stuffed all the damage into a pillowcase, to take.

  I went to work in the bathroom, scooping, stuffing. I winced as something smashed downstairs, then more laughter. On the mirror and part of the wall MacIver had left a perfect image of himself: misspelled obscenities and one large swastika. I started on the swastika, remembering the Hebrew dictionary.

  Then from downstairs a muffled shout, some shuffling and banging. A car door closed, a kitchen door crashed.

  “Vot? Vot?”

  I don’t know why I was running down to them, the Karmapovs, but running I was, down the stairs, glad the swastika was off at least, glad my pillowcase held most of the destruction. I may just have thought it, but I may in fact have yelled, “I’ve got it almost clean, it’s almost clean.”

  I found them embracing in the kitchen, Mr. Karmapov crooning and stroking his wife’s head. They swayed. It was as if they’d done this before. They swayed over the bright yellow of a broken mustard jar on the floor, and squirted ketchup, and a sneaker Al Cody had lost escaping out the window. Mr. Karmapov was staring across into the dining room at his flaming hand picture. It was smeared with molasses.

  He turned to look at me now, and doing so he smiled, snorted, and shook his head. I was no big deal. His cold blue eyes bulged wide and seemed to be taking in far more than just me. Later, in the hearing, I learned he had eyed other thieves, and brutal police, and acts of cruelty I couldn’t begin to imagine. Grimly smiling, he released his wife and whispered to her and she obediently went to the phone. Still smiling he moved to the middle of the kitchen and squared his shoulders, blocking my way to the door. He looked cruel, like he hoped I would try getting past.

  I stood where I was. I could smell him. It was a smell of rage, and it was also a foreign smell. I said I was sorry, looked to both of them, and got a response from neither. Now, with another snort and a fresh smile, from his wife’s basket on the counter Mr. Karmapov pulled a square, black box, a twin of the camera in the basement. He cranked a lever around and around and the camera whined and the harshest lime-green light issued from a little flashlight-thing on its top. He pointed the camera at me and the white-lime beam made it hard to look.

  “You scared,” Mr. Karmapov said, so softly he probably didn’t care if I heard him. “You be very colour.” He added, louder, “Smile.”

  THE GODS TAKE OFF THEIR SHIRTS

  Another day’s headache is almost gone. The taxi delivers me and there’s Jay in his cluttered carport. He’s standing calmly, he looks normal. I don’t know what I expected. He’s taking a puffy ski jacket from a dry cleaner’s bag. He treats the filmy bag gingerly. I see it’s the bag he wants and I’ll bet he took that ski jacket in just so he could get one.

  He hangs the clean jacket from a nail in the carport wall. Jay’s is one of those trusting carports where people could come in and take stuff. Other nails hold rain gear, and what look to be some of Penny’s dresses and windbreakers. Penny left Jay m
aybe five years ago now. As far as I know he’s been alone in this house since then. Also in the carport are stacked paint cans, car tires, road-hockey sticks and such, plus some chairs that one day might get repaired. It’s not the kind of stuff thieves would walk even the length of a driveway to grab, but middle-of-the-night teenagers could have themselves a time.

  “What’s wrong with your car?” is how Jay greets me.

  “What do you mean?”

  “The taxi.”

  I tell him I took a cab because I assume tonight involves beer.

  “I’m not going to,” he says, “but feel free.”

  He’s wearing jeans and a T-shirt and so am I. For some reason this bothers me. I watch him smooth out his bag, and notice the candles and strips of balsa wood scattered on a table.

  After waiting another moment I ask, “You have any? Beer?”

  He thinks there might be a few cans in the fridge, at the back, I’ll have to dig around. It’s funny seeing old friends like Jay, because even though he’s around forty, like you, your history is one of being young and crazy together, so you still see him, and by extension yourself, as young and crazy. Or maybe it’s, seeing him, you’re reminded you’re not crazy any more but want to be, as though it’s a good thing. For better or worse it’s in the air, even though he called earlier today to tell me he has a brain tumour and wants to spend the evening together.

  I return from rooting in the fridge, beer in hand, and there were only two others, I’ll have to make a beer run somehow. Taking a perky first sip, I recognize now what Jay’s laid out on the table: stuff to build a UFO candle-bag. I’m amazed I remember.