The Gypsy

by Stephen Brust

I'm sick of watching cable

  and sleeping here alone.

  "STEPDOWN"

  The park was a pleasant place, still. The neighborhood around it was declining, and the people walking the paths and the mothers pushing babies in strollers reflected the change, but the park itself-the plantings,the grass, the pond-seemed immune to the changing fortunes of the economy. More swings were vandalized, perhaps, and the ducks more wary of stone throwers, but the park itself was still nice. Cold. Quiet,this time of the morning.

  Stepovich found a bench and sat, facing the play equipment. A small boy dug determinedly in the sandbox, despite the cold and the snow. A couple walked by the pond. The swings hung slack and empty. He could remember sitting on one of those swings, holding Jeffrey and swinging. And singing.Old songs, the same old songs his dad had sung to him. And Jennie and Laurie feeding the ducks, pretending they didn't know the strange man who was belting out "Barnacle Bill The Sailor" to the little kid on his lap, swinging high and pumping his legs to carry them even higher.

  For one aching instant, he wondered if Jeffrey could remember any of that. Jeffrey had been so small. Stepovich reached back into himself, trying to see where his own memories of his father began. But he couldn't put a date to it. Big hands. That's what he thought of when he remembered his father. Big hands, with the thick nails rounded off short. Big hands that could swing him up to touch his head against the ceiling,but could also tie his shoelaces in double knots that wouldn't come undone. He looked at his own hands,and wondered if Jeffrey would ever remember them.

  He glanced from his hands to the ground. Two small sneakers faced him. He looked up to find the sandbox kid regarding him steadily with confident brown eyes. "Push me," he said, and then fumed and ran toward the swings. Stepovich didn't move. The boy grabbed the chain of one swing, rattled it impatiently. Stepovich pulled himself to his feet,wondering why, and obediently came to help the boy get into the swing. He pushed him, small pushes at first, and then as he laughed aloud and kicked out his short legs, harder. Then, "Down, down," he was saying, and Stepovich caught at him, slowing the swing's momentum, catching boy and swing and easing them to a stop. The kid jumped from the swing,his shirt pulling out of his jeans.

  "Merry-go-round," he announced, and reached up for Stepovich's hand.

  "A moment, little man," he said, and knelt to tug the boy's shirt straight and pull his jeans back up over his shirt tail. The boy wriggled in his hands, giggling as if tickled.

  "Get up, you son of a bitch!"

  Stepovich came up from his knee in a controlled spin that put him face to face with the male half of the duck-feeding couple. He had muscular arms and a punk's spoiled face and he was still trying to look tough as he stepped back from Stepovich. "Touch my kid's pants again, I'll kill you, asshole," he snarled. Stepovich glanced past him, habit of a career, keep the eyes moving, and spotted the woman, still clutching her bag of bread. She was watching the scene with neither fear nor anxiety, but absorption, as if it were her two o'clock soap- Stepovich's eyes went back to punk dad, locked there. He kept his face impassive as he said, "The kid's shirt was untucked."

  "Yeah, I'll bet it was," Dad sneered, rocking away as if he knew how deep and still the other's anger was. He sidestepped Stepovich at a distance he probably believed was out of fist range and glared at the kid. "You, Jamie. Didn't I tell ya never to let no one touch you? You let that old faggot shove his hands down your pants?"

  Jamie's eyes went from bright to confounded. Much like Stepovich, the boy could think of nothing to say.

  "You get your ass over to your mother. Right now." And as the boy scrambled away. Dad put his fists on his hips and swelled his chest. "I oughta kick your ass for touching my kid. I catch you hanging out around here again, I just might, old man."

  "I wasn't molesting your child," Stepovich spoke softly. "But if you want to try kicking my ass, feel free." Little bits of anger, floating loose for days, at Durand for answering the phone wrong and always being such a dumbshit pup, at the old gypsy woman for dying so ugly, at the Gypsy for not knowing or giving him the answers to who had killed her, all the little bits of anger were coalescing in him, not hot,but cold and uncaring. He'd rip him a new asshole.He'd make him bleed, not the easy blood from nose and cheekbones, but the deep blood that comes out over the tongue and chokes a man with his own salt.

  Punk Dad took a step back. "There's laws in this town about people like you. We don't like your kind."

  "It's mutual," Stepovich said softly. His hand went slowly to his jacket pocket, groping after the knife as he set his balance and waited. A smile he didn't feel gripped his face and twisted his mouth.

  Something in punk Dad's face changed when Stepovich smiled at him. His own sneer faded, to be replaced with an uncertain fear. A fear that blustered."You touch me, I'm calling a cop."

  Stepovich had started to lift his foot for the step towards him when the horn sounded. No little import car toot, but the deep throated bellow of the all-American Cadillac. The punk glanced toward it as he was backing away and Stepovich's eyes instinctively followed.

  Ed. In his goddamn baby blue land-yacht. The window glided down and Ed leaned out. Even across the distance, his dark brown eyes locked with Stepovich's and drew his anger out like a poultice draws poison from a wound. The couple and the kid were gone, the father hurrying them down the pond walkway and Stepovich was halfway to the car before he had his next thought.He felt just wakened from a dream. He took his hand from his pocket, half-surprised to find it empty.

  As he got in the passenger side, Ed demanded,"What was that all about?"

  "Damned if I know," Stepovich replied, settling back in the seat and stretching his legs out. One thing this car had was room. Lousy gas mileage, and a dinosaur in a parking garage, but roomy. Ed toed the gas pedal and they glided away from the curb.

  "I didn't even recognize you for a minute, back there, you know," Ed pushed.

  "Yeah. Me neither." The car interior was warm after the morning's brisk air. It smelled of car wax and spice from the little tree-shaped car deodorizer and Ed's pipe tobacco. Stepovich leaned back into it as if it were a summer hammock. "Sometimes," he said conversationally, "I feel like an old bull elephant. One the young males have driven out of the herd. And any time I get close at all to the females or the young,they turn on me- Instinctively. You ever feel anything like that?"

  "You need a few days off, Mike," Ed told him.

  "I need a few days off like you need a few days of work."

  "Well, maybe that's true, too. So why don't we combine them. You take a week off and help me do a little work on this baby, and then go fishing on the lake. Or maybe get out of Ohio all together. I know a kid in Michigan, in the U.P., who said he could get me a special rate on cabins on Black Lake."

  "What you doing to this car now?" Stepovich asked idly. Not that he was actually considering Ed's plans. But it was easier to distract him into talking about the Caddy than it was to argue with Mm.

  "Automatic dimmer switch. See, it's a two person thing. I'm supposed to be able to set it on automatic,and then it dims when it senses oncoming headlights,and goes back to bright after they're past."

  Ed was lighting his pipe, a nerve-wracking juggling of steering wheel, pipe, tobacco and lighter. Stepovich looked out the window and reminded himself of all the times their squad car had survived the pipe-lighting ritual, and observed, "You had the Caddy dealer adjust that a month ago."

  "Yeah, well, they didn't get it right," Ed replied testily.

  "Oh." The dealership never got anything right according to Ed. He was always redoing adjustments he'd just had them make.

  "No. It dims way too late. So, what I need is someone outside the car, to set off the dimmer switch with a light, while I'm inside doing the adjustment. Won't take long, I promise. And then we can go fishing."

  It would take four hours, if it didn't take all day.The Caddy was an older model, a pre-gas-crisis dinosaur among cars and Ed's pride and joy. H
e insisted that everything in it had to work perfectly, not just the power windows and the clock, but the automatic dimmers and the adjustable steering column and the hydraulic load levelers and the button in the glove compartment that opened the trunk from inside the car.Sometimes Stepovich got tired just thinking about all the gadgets in the damn car. And there wasn't a one that Ed hadn't taken apart and put back together. He was always saying that when he got it running perfectly, he was going to take off, crisscross the U.S., see the whole country.

  "Well," said Ed. "What about the fishing?"

  Stepovich half turned in his seat. "There's this gypsy," he said, not even knowing that he was going to say it. But once he had started he told him, not just what had happened, but all of it: The knife and the dream and the creepy feeling and the crystal in the old gypsy woman's bag. By the time he had finished,they were pulling into the parking lot of the Shamrock Bar and Grille. Ed stopped the car and turned the key and the gentle vibration of the engine ceased. He looked across at Stepovich.

  "Well?" asked Stepovich after a long pause.

  "I think you need to go fishing," Ed replied.

  They got roast beef on rye and potato salad and dark Becks to go with it and the sweet hot mustard- horseradish spread that was the Shamrock's only claim to fame. They sat in a high-backed booth with red leather on the seats and ate as they had eaten when they were partners, companionably, without speech, giving their attention to the food and trusting some other parts of themselves to pay attention to whatever problem was currently besieging them. Occasionally Stepovich stole a glance at Ed. He hadn't changed that much. A little thicker, his chest merging into his belly. Less hair, and what there was getting grayer. Same snapping dark eyes. Eyes that could ask one question while Ed was asking a suspect another,and half the time the guy would end up answering both questions before he'd thought about it. A good cop and a better friend.

  Stepovich went for two more Becks, and when he sat down, Ed asked, "You want I should look into it a little?"

  "How?"

  "Turn over a few rocks, shake out a few people who used to know things for me. Ask some tactless questions in ways you aren't allowed to ask them. You know."

  Stepovich did know. "I don't want you getting your ass in a crack over this," he said.

  Ed snorted. "Give me a little credit. But here's the deal. I shake out what you want, then you take a week off and we go fishing. Right?"

  "Okay," Stepovich conceded. Some part of him felt relieved, and another part of him felt ashamed to have dragged Ed into this. Over what. Over a bad dream and a peculiar feeling.

  "Feeling guilty?" Ed read him, and Stepovich nodded sheepishly.

  "Good." Ed grinned wickedly. "We can spend the rest of the day adjusting my automatically adjusting dimmers."

  AFTERNOON

  I got no home I can go back to,

  I got no one to call a friend.

  I can't find the place I started.

  I can only guess how it will end.

  "HIDE MY TRACK"

  They almost caught you, said the Voice. They almost caught you, and now they're closing in.

  Timothy moaned and rolled over, pushed damp sheets away from him, and pounded his fist into the pillow. The Voice didn't go away, though; it never did. They almost caught you, it repeated. He sobbed.

  Tim, it said. Timothy. Little Timmy.

  "No!" he cried. He hated being called Little Timmy. He'd always hated that. Little Timmy got pushed around. Little Timmy got beat up, and, most of all. Little Timmy got laughed at.

  Little Timmy, said the Voice.

  He sat up and cried to the air, not caring by this time if the whole building heard him. "If they catch me it's your fault. You said you'd protect me, damn you."

  There was a pause, but then the voice inside his skull answered him. Damn me? it said. How redundant.Timmy felt a shudder go through him, and, more than anything else, he wanted to be away. But it wouldn't let him go. I disguised you, Timothy. I made you look like someone else, and the police caught him, but he escaped.You were almost found three days ago, Timothy, but I protected you. So you see-

  "You did that?" he spoke to the walls, and there was hysteria in his voice. "I did that. You made me kill an old woman who had never-"

  Shush, Timothy. You tire me. Yes, you killed her, but what took you so long? Was she too strong for you? If you had killed her quickly, they wouldn't be after you. But I acted to protect you. Now 1 will act again. It is time for you to get up and go out. It is no longer enough to count on your police, Timothy. You must act yourself.

  He sat on the bed and looked at his hands. There was a power there, as there was a power in the Voice. His stomach churned once more as he thought of the old woman, her eyes bright with anger and pride and hate, and he felt the fear in his bowels as she had struck the gun from his hand, and then he'd been holding a knife, and where had it come from? And where did it go?

  "What must I do?" he said.

  The knife has fallen from our hands, and we could not use it against him in any case. You must get your gun. I will tell you what to do with it.

  He still sat at the edge of the bed and stared at his hands, "Why are you doing this to me?" he asked.

  To his surprise, she answered.

  Because I can. Little Timmy.

  MID-AUTUMN, AFTER SUNRISE

  I keep finding hands to help me with the load

  So I'll keep walking further up this road.

  "UP THE ROAD"

  Early morning: Cigany sat cross-legged in his hidey-hole beneath the overpass and stared at his knife. It would need to be cleaned, he. knew, before he could fully trust it again. Until it was, it could draw the Fair Lady to him, and who knew what form the attack would take? He was not invulnerable, he knew that.He had lived a long time because of his wits, and skill, and luck, but now the Fair Lady had seen him,and he Her, and the battle was joined in earnest, and he knew that She had the power to destroy him if he wasn't careful.

  Death didn't frighten him, but the idea that he could die after all of those forgotten years, and all of that heartache and pain; this was not to be borne.

  As he stood up, the sun's rays struck him across the face, and he shuddered, knowing that today someone would try to kill him. He made the sign of the cross in the air and looked around for a piece of wood to touch. There were none, so he picked up some gravel and threw it in front of him saying, "May my road be higher than the river and lower than the sun, and may my feet find a safe way home."

  He brushed his hands on his shirt and set off, keeping to alleys as much as possible, always staying alert for the police. As he walked he found a clothing store and stole a snakeskin belt (the only snakeskin he could find), pulled a twig from a hazel tree, and begged a small quantity of holy water from a confused priest. He drank a bowl of tasteless soup and a cup of weak coffee at a Howard Johnson's, then continued to forage. As he walked, his vision began to blur, and he felt his headache coming back. He took the piece of paper out of his pocket and tried to remember how the scribbling on it could cure the headache, but it was no good- He laughed grimly to himself. "When my head doesn't hurt," he thought,"I don't think of it, and when it does, I can't read it." He took wheat flour from a grocery store and a white candle from a pharmacy. He took a piece of bark from an oak, and, with the knife, scratched designs of the moon and the stars on the bark.

  Armed with these things, he made his way back to his place beneath the overpass and waited for the rising of the full moon of autumn.

  1980's

  They said. "Why are you here?"

  I said, "I'm doing time,

  'Cause I'm willing to break laws

  But I won't commit no crime."

  "NO PASSENGER"

  It was humiliating to be a coachman and to be forced to ride in a cab; a humiliation only partly alleviated by riding up front, with the driver. Sometimes they wouldn't let you do that, but this man, big and burly like an innkeeper and gnarled like a peasa
nt woman,didn't seem to mind. His nod was an implied shrug,and as the Coachman settled into place he said, "Whereto?"

  "The bus station," he said. More humiliations in store.

  The cab pulled away. "Meeting someone?"

  "No, going somewhere."

  The driver frowned for a moment then shrugged. The lack of luggage probably puzzled him. He said,"Where ya going?"

  "I'm looking for birds," he said, only coming to realize it as the words were spoken.

  "Birds?"

  "I have to find a Raven and an Owl before the Dove kills himself."

  The driver cleared his throat and twitched nervously, obviously having second thoughts about having this wacko in the front seat "Whatever you say,buddy," he finally said. They spoke no more during the journey.

  13 NOV 09:47

  My partner doesn't even know my name.

  If he did I think I'd hate him

  Just the same.

  "STEPDOWN"

  Stepovich wished he were driving. Durand always talked while he drove, and flapped his right hand at Stepovich, as if that were an essential part of talking.

  "So the lab guy says, 'Yeah, that bastard drove that knife into her like he was trying to shove it clear to China, but that wasn't the weirdest part of it, though,'so I says, 'Oh, yeah,' kind of casual, and he says,'No, the weirdest part was the wound configuration.I didn't know what the hell it was, I thought maybe the killer had a defective knife or something, but one of the older guys, he looks at it and says, hey, will you look at the hilt impressions on this wound?' "

  The taxicab at the corner barely curtsied to the stop sign before it swung out in front of them. Durand crammed on the brakes and Stepovich's palm, slapped the dash as he braced himself.

  "Shit," hissed Stepovich, and spent a few futile moments groping for the ends of the seat belt, but as always it was stuffed somewhere in the crevice of the seat back.