The New Black

by Richard Thomas

  “Come with me, bud.”

  Daddy picks him up and plops him down in a small sunroom at the front of the cottage.

  Tom says, “Mommy and Daddy need to watch a grown-up show for a little while.”

  “So I can’t see it?”

  “Right.”

  “How come?”

  Tom is crouched low, face to face with Danny. Danny stares at the scraggly hairs of his mustache and beard. “Because I said it’s only for grown-ups.”

  “Is it about feeding the ducks? Is it scary?”

  Daddy doesn’t answer that. “We’ll come get you in a few minutes. Okay, bud?” He stands, walks out, and starts to close sliding glass doors.

  “Wait! Let me say something to Mommy first.”

  Tom gives that sigh of his, loud enough for Ellen to give him that look of hers. They always share like this. Danny stays in the sunroom, pokes his head between the glass doors. Ellen is to his left, sitting in front of the TV, same position, same hand over her mouth. “Mommy, pretend you didn’t know that I could see through these doors.”

  Mommy works to put her eyes on her son. “So, you won’t be able to see anything in here when we shut the doors?”

  “No, I can see through them.”

  Tuesday

  It’s raining. They don’t go to the beach. Danny is in the sunroom watching Beth. His parents are in the living room watching more grown-up TV. Beth pulls on Danny’s shirt and tries to walk, but she falls next to the couch and cries. Ellen comes in, picks up Beth, and sits down next to Danny.

  He says, “This is boring.”

  “I know, sweetie. Maybe we’ll go out soon.”

  Danny looks out the front windows and watches the rain fall on the front lawn and the dirt road. Beth crawls away from Ellen and toward the glass doors. She bangs on the glass with meaty little hands.

  Danny says, “Mommy, pretend you didn’t know we were in a spaceship.”

  There’s a pause. Beth bangs her head on the glass. Ellen says, “So, we’re all just sitting here in a cottage room, right?”

  “No. This is a spaceship with glass doors.”

  Beth bangs on the glass harder and yells in rhythm.

  Ellen says, “If we’re in a ship, what about Daddy?”

  “We’ll come back for him later.”

  “Good idea.”

  X

  Ellen and Beth stay at the cottage. Tom and Danny are in the car but they don’t listen to the radio and Daddy isn’t singing silly songs. Danny holds the magic yellow paper even though he knows they’re going to the supermarket, not the beach.

  They have to travel to the center of Moultonborough. Another long and obviously magical word that he’ll say inside his head. There isn’t much traffic. The supermarket’s super-lot has more carts than cars.

  Inside, the music is boring and has no words. Danny hangs off the side of their cart like a fireman. He waves and salutes to other shoppers as they wind their way around the stacks, but nobody waves back. Nobody looks at each other over their overflowing carts.

  The line isn’t long even though there are only three registers open. Tom tries to pay with a credit card. Danny is proud he knows what a credit card is.

  “I’m sorry, sir, but the system is down. No credit cards. Cash or check.” The girl working the register is young, but like the older kids. She has dark circles under her eyes.

  Danny points and says, “Excuse me, you should go to bed early tonight.”

  Tom has a green piece of paper and is writing something down on it. He gives it to the register girl.

  She says, “I’ll try,” and offers a smile. A smile that isn’t happy.

  In the parking lot, Danny says, “Go fast.”

  Tom says, “Hey, Danny.”

  Danny’s whole body tenses up. He doesn’t know what he did wrong. “What?”

  “I love you. You know that, right?”

  Danny swings on those marionette arms and looks everywhere at once. “Yeah.”

  Then Tom smiles and obeys and runs with the full cart. Danny melts and laughs, stretching out and throwing his head back, closing his eyes in the brightening haze. There are no other cars between the cart and their car.

  Wednesday

  They spend the day in the cottage. More sunroom. More grown-up TV. When Tom and Ellen finally shut off the TV they talk about going out just to go out somewhere anywhere but the TV room and sunroom and maybe find an early dinner. Danny says, “Moultonborough.” They talk about how much gas is in the car. Danny says, “Winnipesauke.” They try to use their cell phones but the little LCD screens say no service. Danny says, “Pretend you didn’t know I say magic words.” They talk about how much cash they have. Everybody in the car. Tom tells Danny it’s his job to keep Beth awake. There are no other vehicles on the dirt road and more than half of the cottages they pass are dark. Beth is falling asleep so Danny sings loud silly songs and pokes her chin and cheeks. They pass empty gravel driveways and the blue bug-zappers aren’t on. Beth cries. Danny is trying not to think about the bears in the woods. Ellen asks Danny to stop touching his sister’s face and then says it’s okay if Beth falls asleep. They don’t have to look left or right when pulling out of the dirt road. Danny still works at the keep-Beth-awake job Daddy gave him and there’s something inside him that wants to hear her cry and he touches her face again. They’re into the center of Moultonborough and there’s less traffic than there was yesterday. Beth cries and Ellen is stern but not yelling she never yells telling Danny to stop touching Beth’s face. Maybe the bears are why there aren’t as many people around. Beth is asleep. There’s a smattering of parked cars in the downtown area but they don’t look parked they look empty. Danny gently pats Beth’s foot and sees Daddy watching him in the rear view mirror. The antique stores gift shops and hamburger huts are dark and have red signs on their doors and red always means either stopped or closed or something bad. Tom yells did you hear your mother keep your hands off your sister! They pass a row of empty family restaurants. Ellen says Tom like his name is sharp like it hurts and she says I only asked him to stop touching her face I don’t want him to be freaked out by his sister he’s being nice now why are you yelling when he was just doing what you asked him to do you have to be consistent with him and she is stern and she is not yelling. They pull into a lot that has one truck another empty restaurant this one with a moose on the roof and they stop. Then Tom is loud again this time with some hard alrights and then I hear you I get it okay I heard you the first time. Tom gets out of the car and slams the door and an older man with white hair that could mean he’s magic and a white apron walks out the restaurant’s front door. Danny waves. The older man waves them inside. Ellen gets out of the car and whispers but it’s not a soft whisper not at all it’s through teeth and it has teeth she says don’t you dare yell at me in front of the kids. Beth wakes up and points and chews on her rabbit. They go inside. The older man says they are lucky he was just cooking up the last of his non-frozen food so it wouldn’t go to waste and it was on the house. Danny thinks about the moose on the house. They walk by the bar and there’s a woman sitting on a stool staring up at a big screen TV. Tom asks if they could shut that off because of the kids. The old man nods and uses a big remote control. Danny doesn’t see anything again. The old man serves some BBQ chicken and ribs and fries and then leaves them alone. The lights are on and nobody says anything important in the empty restaurant.

  X

  On the way back to the cottage they see a lonely mansion built into the side of a mountain. Looking dollhouse-sized, its white walls and red roof surrounded by the green trees stands out like a star even in the twilight.

  Danny says, “What is that?”

  Tom says, “That’s called the Castle in the Clouds.”

  “Can we go see it?”

  “Maybe. Maybe we’ll even go and live there. Would you like that?”

&nbs
p; Danny says, “Yes,” but he then he thinks the Castle is too alone, cloaked in a mountain forest, but too open, anyone can see it from this road. He doesn’t know what’s worse, being alone alone or a watched alone. Danny doesn’t change his answer.

  X

  It’s past Danny’s bedtime but his parents aren’t ready to put him to bed.

  Ellen is on the couch reading a magazine that has a tall, blonde, skinny woman on the cover. Tom sits in front of the TV, flipping channels. There’s nothing but static. The TV is like their cell phones now.

  Tom says, “Well, at least they’ve stopped showing commercials for the War of the Worlds remake.”

  Danny wants to laugh because he knows it’s what Daddy wants. But he doesn’t because Mommy isn’t. Danny has a good idea what ‘war’ means even though no one has ever explained it to him. Tom shuts off the TV.

  There are pictures of other people all over the cottage. Now that Danny is allowed back in the TV room, he’s looking at each one. Strangers with familiar smiles and beach poses. He looks at the frames too. They have designs and letters and words. Maybe magic words. Danny picks up one picture of a little girl and boy hugging and sitting on a big rock. He doesn’t care about those kids. He wants to know what all the letters etched onto the wooden frame say. Those letters wrap all the way around the photo.

  “Read this please, Daddy.”

  “’Children are the magic dreamers that we all once were.”

  “Mommy, pretend you didn’t know I was a magic dreamer.”

  “So, you dream about boring, non-magical stuff, right?”

  “No. I’m a magic dreamer. Are you a magic dreamer?”

  X

  Ellen sleeps with Beth in the small bed next to the bedroom door, Danny sleeps in his Princess-and-the-Pea tall bed. Tom sleeps in the other bedroom. Alone alone.

  Thursday

  A perfect summer day. The corner Gas ‘N Save is open. The pumps still work. Tom fills up the car’s tank and five red, two-gallon containers he took from inside the market. Danny is inside, running around the stacks. No one tells him to stop. He climbs onto an empty shelf next to some bread, though there isn’t much bread left, and he lies down, breathing heavy from all the running.

  Tom makes multiple trips from the market to the car. On the last trip, he plucks Danny off the shelf. He says, “Hmm, this melon doesn’t look too ripe.” Danny giggles and squirms in Daddy’s arms. “But I’ll take it anyway.”

  The older woman behind the counter is smoking a cigarette and has a face with extra skin. She looks like the girl from the supermarket but one-thousand years older. Tom extends a fistful of money and asks, “Is this enough?”

  She says, “Yes,” without counting it. Danny thinks she is lying and that she just wants them gone like everyone else.

  Tom buckles Danny into his seat. Danny says, “What would you do if you were a giant?”

  “A giant? Well, I’d use a mountain as my pillow and the trees as a mattress.”

  Danny thinks about a Giant Daddy lying on a mountain, crushing all the trees and bears and other animals and the Castle in the Clouds with his back and arms, and his legs would be long enough to crush Moultonborough and the other towns too, maybe his feet would dangle into Winnipesauke and cause huge waves, drown the poor ducks, flood everything.

  Danny says, “That would hurt.”

  X

  At night the electricity goes out, but it’s okay because they have two lanterns and lots of candles. They sit in the back yard around a football-shaped charcoal grill eating hotdogs and holding sticks with marshmallows skewered on the tips. The smoke keeps the bugs away. They sing loud to keep the bears away. Danny sits on Mommy’s lap and tells stories about magic and the adventures of Speed Boy and Giant Daddy. Then Tom carries him to bed and Ellen carries a candle. They kiss him goodnight. Danny closes his eyes. He almost knows why they are still here when everyone else is disappearing, but he can’t quite get there, can’t reach it, like the night he tried to send his ears out to the noises.

  Danny tries to send his ears out again and this time he hears his parents in the hallway. They speak with one voice. He hears words that he doesn’t understand. They might be arguing and they might be laughing and they might be crying but it doesn’t matter, because Danny knows tonight was the best night of their vacation.

  Friday

  Danny wakes up before anyone else and goes into the sunroom. There’s morning mist and a bear on the front lawn. The bear is black and bigger than Danny’s world, although that world seems to be shrinking. Danny thinks bears, even the dumb-looking Teddy bears, always know more about what’s going on than the other animals and it’s part of what scares Danny. He’s scared now but he wants a better view so he opens the front door and stands on the elevated stoop, his hand on the door, ready to dash back inside if necessary. The bear runs away at the sound of the door and it disappears. Danny hears it crashing through some brush but then everything goes quiet. Why would a bear be afraid of him?

  Now that it’s gone Danny steps outside, the wet grass soaking his feet. He says, “Hey, come back.” He wants to ask the bear, where are all the people? The bear must know the answer.

  X

  Danny and Ellen sit out back, playing Go Fish at the picnic table. Tom went shopping for supplies, a phrase he used before leaving, by himself. He’s been gone most of the morning.

  Danny loses again but Ellen calls him the winner.

  Danny says, “Mommy, pretend you didn’t know it was a beautiful day.”

  Ellen shuffles the cards. “So it’s really rainy and cold out, right?”

  “No. There’re no clouds. And the sun is out and super hot. It’s a beautiful day.”

  They play more card games. They play with Beth. She’s almost ready to walk by herself but she still falls, and after she falls, she rips out fistfuls of grass and stuffs it in her mouth. They eat lunch. They nap.

  Tom comes home after the naps. Supplies fill the car, including a mini-trailer hitched to the back. Tom gets out of the car and gives everyone an enthusiastic kiss and puts Danny on his shoulders. Ellen shrinks as he goes up.

  Ellen says, “Did you see anybody.”

  Tom whispers an answer that Danny can’t hear because he’s above Daddy’s head.

  Ellen says, “What you got there in the trailer?”

  “A generator.”

  “Really? You know how to set one of those up?”

  “Yup.”

  Danny comes back down.

  “Where’d you learn how to do that?”

  “I just know, okay?”

  Ellen goes back to the picnic table with Beth. Tom to the trailer and the generator. There are no more enthusiastic kisses.

  Danny watches Tom setting up the generator. He says, “Daddy, pretend you didn’t know this was a beautiful day.”

  “It’s not a beautiful day.”

  “No, it is! There’re no clouds. And the sun is out and super hot. It’s a beautiful day, Daddy. I just know, okay?”

  Saturday

  They leave the car at the cottage and walk the mile to the beach. They don’t carry much beach stuff. Beth is asleep in the stroller. Danny has on his swimming trunks but his parents are wearing shorts and tee shirts. The trip to the beach is for him. His parents don’t know it, but Danny has the yellow magic paper folded up in his pocket.

  Danny asks, “Is today supposed to be the last day of vacation?”

  Ellen says, “I think we’re going to stay here a little while longer.”

  Tom says, “Maybe a long while longer.”

  Ellen says, “Is that okay?”

  “Sure.”

  Tom says, “Maybe we’ll go check out that Castle in the Clouds tomorrow.”

  Danny almost tells them about the bear. Instead he says, “Mommy, pretend you didn’t know we were still on vacation.”

  They pa
ss empty driveways of empty cottages. Danny, for the first time, is really starting to feel uneasy about the people being gone. It’s like when he thinks about why and how he got here and how are his parents his parents and how is his sister his sister, because if he thinks too much about any of that he probably won’t like the answers.

  The beach lot is empty. They stake out their regular spot next to the tree and its duck sign. There are ducks on the shore scratching the sand and dipping their bills in the water. It’s another beautiful day.

  Tom says, “I don’t get it. I thought this is where everyone would want to be.”

  Ellen finishes for him. “Especially now.”

  The ducks waddle over. They don’t know the law. Tom pulls out a bag of Cheerios, Beth’s snack, and tosses a few on the sand. The ducks converge and are greedy.

  Ellen pushes the stroller deeper into the shade away from the ducks and says, “Are you sure we can spare those, Mr. Keeper-of-the-Supplies?” It walks like a joke and talks like a joke but it isn’t a joke.

  Danny says, “Daddy! Don’t you remember the sign? It’s against the law to feed the ducks.” Danny looks around, making sure the people who aren’t there still aren’t there.

  “It’s okay now, buddy. I don’t think anyone will care anymore. Here, kiddo.”

  He takes the Cheerio bag from Daddy. Daddy pats his head. Danny digs a hand deep into the bag, pulls it out, and throws Cheerios onto the sand. The ducks flinch and scatter toward the water, but they come back and feed.

  Paul Tremblay

  is the author of the novels The Little Sleep, No Sleep Till Wonderland, and Swallowing a Donkey’s Eye, and the short story collections Compositions for the Young and Old and In the Mean Time. He has published two novellas, and his essays and short fiction have appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Five Chapters.com, and Best American Fantasy 3. He is the co-editor of four anthologies including Creatures: Thirty Years of Monster Stories (with John Langan). Paul is the president of the board of directors for the Shirley Jackson Awards (www.shirleyjacksonawards.org). He lives outside of Boston, Massachusetts, has a master’s degree in Mathematics, and has no uvula.