I draw closer, still unnoticed. Before I can change my mind, I slip through the wrought iron gate, which he’s left ajar; the lock was smashed months ago, and we’ve never bothered replacing it. As I move across the courtyard, he hears me and spins around. He steps towards me and raises the paint gun to eye level, but I knock it out of his hand. That makes me angry; I could have been blinded. He runs for the fence, and gets half-way up; I grab him by the belt of his jeans and haul him down. Just as well—the spikes are sharp, and rusty.
I let go of his belt and he turns around slowly, glaring at me, trying to look menacing but failing badly. “Keep your fucking hands off me! You’re not a cop.”
“Ever heard of citizen’s arrest?” I step back and push the gate shut. So, what now? Invite him inside so I can phone the police?
He grabs hold of a fence railing; clearly, he’s not going anywhere without a struggle. Shit. What am I going to do—drag him into the building, kicking and screaming? I don’t have much stomach for assaulting children, and I’m on shaky legal ground already.
So it’s stalemate.
I lean against the gate.
“Just tell me one thing.” I point at the wall. “Why? Why do you do it?”
He snorts. “I could ask you the same fucking question.”
“About what?”
“About helping them stay in the country. Taking our jobs. Taking our houses. Fucking things up for all of us.”
I laugh. “You sound like my grandfather. Them and us. That’s the kind of twentieth-century bullshit that wrecked the planet. You think you can build a fence around this country and just forget about everything outside? Draw some artificial line on a map and say: people inside matter, people outside don’t?”
“Nothing artificial about the ocean.”
“No? They’ll be pleased to hear that in Tasmania.”
He just scowls at me, disgusted. There’s nothing to communicate, nothing to understand. The anti-refugee lobby are always talking about preserving our common values; that’s pretty funny. Here we are, two Anglo Australians—probably born in the very same city—and our values couldn’t be further apart if we’d come from different planets.
He says, “We didn’t ask them to breed like vermin. It’s not our fault. So why should we help them? Why should we suffer? They can all just fuck off and die. Drown in their own shit and die. That’s what I think, okay?”
I step away from the gate and let him pass. He crosses the street, then turns to yell obscenities. I go inside and get the bucket and scrubbing brush, but all I end up doing is smearing wet paint across the wall.
By the time I’ve plugged my lap-top into the office machine, I’m not angry—or even depressed—any more; I’m simply numb.
Just to complete the perfect evening, half-way through transferring one of my files, the power fails. I sit in the dark for an hour, waiting to see if it will come back on; but it doesn’t, so I walk home.
* * *
Things are looking up; there’s no doubt about it.
The Allwick Bill was defeated—and the Greens have a new leader, so there’s hope for them yet.
Jack Kelly is in prison for arms smuggling. Sweet F.A. still put up their moronic posters—but there’s a group of antifascist students who spend their spare time tearing them down. Since Ranjit and I scraped up enough money for an alarm system, there’s been no more graffiti; and lately even the threatening letters have become rare.
Loraine and I are married now. We’re happy together, and happy in our jobs. She’s been promoted to laboratory manager, and the work at Matheson & Singh is booming—even the kind that pays. I really couldn’t ask for more. Sometimes we talk about adopting a child, but the truth is we don’t have the time.
We don’t often talk about the night I caught the graffitist. The night the inner city was blacked-out, for six hours. The night several freezers full of forensic samples were spoiled. Loraine refuses to entertain any paranoid theories about this; the evidence is gone, she says. Speculation is poindess.
I do sometimes wonder, though, just how many people there might be who hold the very same views as the screwed-up child. Not in terms of nations, not in terms of race; but people who’ve marked their very own lines to separate us and them. Who aren’t buffoons in jackboots, parading for the cameras; who are intelligent, resourceful, far-sighted. And silent.
And I wonder what kind of fortresses they’re building.
VOICES
Jack Dann
Jack Dann is one of the most respected writer/editors of his generation. His books include the critically acclaimed novel The Man Who Melted, as well as junction, Starhiker, and a collection of his short fiction, Timetipping. As an anthologist, he edited the well-known anthology Wandering Stars; his other anthologies include More Wandering Stars, Immortal, Faster than Light (co-edited with George Zebrow-ski), and several fantasy anthologies co-edited with Gardner Dozois. His story “Blind Shemmy” was in our First Annual Collection; his “Bad Medicine” was in our Second Annual Collection; and his “Tattoos” was in our Fourth Annual Collection. His most recent book is the acclaimed Vietnam War anthology In the Field of Fire, co-edited with Jeanne Van Buren Dann. Upcoming are two new novels, High Steel (written with Jack C. Haldeman II), and The Path of Remembrance.
In the sad but lyrical story that follows, he shows us a troubled young boy struggling to come to terms with one of the basic facts of life—death.
I was carefully papering the balsawood wing struts of my scale-model Gotha G V bomber when Crocker asked me if I ever spoke to dead people.
Although Crocker is a member of the Susquehanna River Modelmakers and Sex Fiends Association (which doesn’t say much because all you have to do to become a member is hang out in the shack by the river and make models), everybody thinks he’s right off his nut. One of the guys nicknamed him Crock-a-shit because of all the stupid stories he told—and the stupid questions he asked—and the name stuck. Hell, he seemed to like it. But nobody broke his arms or his legs or smashed up his models, and so he stayed on, sort of like a mascot. He was fat, freckled, and wore his white-blond hair in a brush cut. But he was also smart, in his way. He was twelve, a year younger than me, and was in seventh-grade honors.
“Steve, you hear me or what?” he asked me, turning down the volume on the club’s battery-powered radio. It was playing the Big Bopper’s “Chantilly Lace.” Since Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and the Big Bopper had died in a plane crash back in February, the radio stations were still playing their stuff all the time—and here it was June! “You ever talk to a dead person or not?”
“No, Crocker,” I said. I was trying to work the air bubbles out of the paper: This Gotha was the only model of its kind and would have a wingspan of over six feet. My stepfather had given me the kit for my birthday. “I never talked to anybody who’s dead … except maybe you. Now turn the volume back up.” But the song was over and the disc jockey was saying something about Lou Costello, who died back in March. I could never remember if he was the fat comedian or the skinny one; but I only liked the fat one and hoped it wasn’t him.
Anyway, this was frustrating work, and Crock-a-shit was, as usual, fouling everything up. I have to admit, though, that he had made me curious; but just thinking about dead people made me feel jittery, and sad, too. It made me think of my dad, my real dad, who died in the hospital when I was seven. Funny, the things you remember. I used to play a game with him when he came home from the office every night. We had a leather couch in the den—Dad called it “The Library”—and I would slide my hand back and forth on the cushion while he would try to catch it. And then when he did, he would hold it tight and we’d laugh. Dad had gray hair, and everybody said he was handsome. But when he was in the hospital, he didn’t even know who Mom and I were. He thought Mom was his mother! She cried when he got mixed up, and I just felt weird about it. Especially when he had an attack and then talked in a language that sounded like Op-talk. Mom said it was because his brai
n wasn’t working right. I knew that if I could only understand it, everything would be all right. It was like he was trying to tell me what to do in some secret language; and if I could only figure out the words, I’d be able to help him get well. But then he died, and I never got to say good-bye in a way he could understand because his brain never did get right again.
Crocker didn’t say anything more for a while, which was unusual for him.
When I had finished the wings, which weren’t right and would have to be redone again, I looked up and said, “Crock-a-shit, what are you looking at?”
“Nothin’.”
“What’s with all this dead people stuff?” I asked, trying to treat him like a human being.
“I just wanted to know if you have ever done it, that’s all.”
“Done what?”
“I just told you! Talk to dead people.”
“Have you?” I asked, knowing for sure I would get one of his bullshit answers.
“Yeah, I do it a few times a week. When I don’t come down here.”
“Oh, sure, and where do you do that?”
“Every day I check the paper to see if there’s anything going on at the funeral home on the corner of Allen and Main. If there is, I just sort of walk in and talk to the corpse in the casket. If not, I come over here.”
“And nobody says nothing to you? They just let you walk in and talk to dead people?”
“They ain’t bothered me yet.” After a pause, he said, “You wanna go with me today? They got somebody in there,” and he showed me the obituary column from the Sun-Bulletin. I glanced at what he was trying to show me and shook out the sports section. Patterson was fighting Ingemar Johansson on Friday. I was rooting for Patterson, who had KO’d Archie Moore in ’56.
“You wanna go with me and see for yourself or not?” Crocker asked, indignantly ripping the paper out of my hands. “Or are you afraid?”
“Screw you!”
“You probably never been to a funeral in your life.”
“I’ve been to funerals before,” I said. “Everybody has.”
“But did you ever see a dead person?”
I had to say no to that. “I never even saw my own father after he died.”
That certainly shut him up, but he had such a sorrowful look on his face that I felt sorry for him.
“I’m Jewish,” I said, “and Jews can’t have open caskets. Of course, there must be a reason for that, but I don’t know what it is.”
“How’d he die?” Crocker asked, fumbling around with his hands as if he wasn’t used to having them.
“Something wrong with his liver.”
“Like from drinking?” he asked.
“No, it was nothing like that,” I said. But I had heard my mother talking to the doctor; maybe he did get sick from drinking, although I swear I can’t remember seeing him drunk or anything. And I had just about had it with Crocker’s questions; he was acting like Jack Webb on Dragnet. You’d think he would have to shut up after I told him about my father. But not Crocker. He was a nosy little bastard. After a pause, he asked, “Did you ever talk to him after he died?”
“You’re out of your freaking gourd, Crocker. Nobody but an a-hole thinks he can talk to people after they’re dead.”
“If you come with me today, I’ll prove it to you.”
“No way, sucker. I got better things to do than act like a nimblenarm.”
“With your father being dead and all, I can’t blame you for being afraid,” Crocker said. “I’d be, too.”
“Crocker, get the hell out of my life,” I said. I guess I shouted at him, because he looked real nervous. But I didn’t need him spreading it all over the place that I was afraid to look at a dead person. Christ, Crock-a-shit had a bigger mouth than my mother.
“Okay,” I said, “but if I don’t hear this dead person talk like you say, I’m going to break your head.” I said it as if I meant it.
I guess I did.
But that only seemed to make Crocker happy, for he nodded and helped me put away my Gotha bomber.
* * *
The worst part of it was that I had to sneak into my house and put on a suit and tie, because Crocker said you can’t just walk in with jeans and a T-shirt.
But a deal was a deal.
I met him at the back of the clubhouse, and we walked to the funeral home. It was a hot, humid summer, and boring as hell. There was never anything to do, and even going down to the club and smoking and working on models was boring. And to make matters worse, I thought about Marie Dickson all the time. She was so … beautiful! I would see her around once in a while, but I never said anything to her. I was waiting for the right time.
Not a good way to get through a summer. Anyway, she was always with a girlfriend, and I was most times by myself. No way was I going to walk up to her and make a complete asshole of myself in front of her and her girlfriend. She hung around with a fat girl, probably because it made her look even better; it seemed all the good-looking girls did that.
“Okay, you ready?” Crocker asked as we approached the front stairs to the building, which was gray and white, with lots of gingerbread like my parents’ house.
“I was born ready. Let’s go.”
I hated this place already.
“We’ll go in right after these people,” Crocker said, nodding in the direction of a crowd waiting to get past the door into the parlor. “Pretend like you’re with them.” So we followed them inside. I was all sweaty and the sharp blast of the air-conditioning felt good.
The old people ahead of us all stopped to write in a book that rested on what looked like a music stand; but Crocker really knew his way around here and led me right into a large, dimly lit, carpeted room with high windows covered with heavy blue drapes. People were standing around and talking, soft organ music was playing, and there was a line of people filing past an ornate casket that was surrounded with great bushes of flowers.
“Let’s go see it and get the hell out of here,” I said, feeling uncomfortable. I looked around. Even though this room was certainly big enough, I felt as if I was being closed up in a closet. And I figured it had to be just a matter of time before someone would see we weren’t supposed to be here and kick us out.
“Wait till the line gets through,” Crocker said. But a woman wearing a silky black dress and one of those round pillbox hats with a veil put her hand on my shoulder and asked, “Did you go to school with Matt?”
I looked at her, and I’ve got to say I was scared, although I don’t really know why I should have been. “Uh, yes, ma’am,” I said, looking to Crocker—who was supposed to be the professional—to pull us out of this.
“I’m his aunt Leona. You should meet his mom and dad, they’re right there.” She pointed to a tall balding man and a skinny woman who made me think of some sort of bird. “Stay right here and I’ll get them,” Aunt Leona said. “I’m sure they’ll want to talk to you.”
I could only nod. When the woman walked away, I said, “What the hell did you get us into?”
Crocker looked nervous, too, but he said, “Didn’t you read the obituary?”
“Piss off, Crocker.”
“Well, it was a kid who lived in Endicott. His family moved to Virginia. I can’t remember the rest.”
“You should have told me it was a kid. Christ Almighty!”
“You shoulda read what I gave you,” he said in a singsong voice that made me want to crown him.
“How’d he die?” I asked.
“I dunno,” Crocker said. “They don’t tell you that kind of stuff in the paper.”
“Well, did he go to our school?”
“I can’t remember,” Crocker said, but it was too late anyway, because Aunt Leona brought a whole crowd to talk to us. I was really nervous now.
What were we supposed to say to the dead kid’s parents?
Although it surprised the living hell right out of me, Crocker and I managed to hold our own. We said how sorry we were and w
hat a nice guy he was, how he played a mean stickball and was a regular nut for Bill Haley and the Comets and Jackie Wilson—you know, “Lonely Teardrops”—and it was the craziest damn thing because it was almost as if we did know this kid. With all the crying and hugging going on around us, I started to get that thunder sound in my ears, which I always used to hear before I was going to cry.
I hadn’t heard that sound in a long time.
I didn’t even hear it at my dad’s funeral, or at the house when everyone stood around and told me I had to be a big boy and all that crap. It wasn’t until months later that I heard the thunder sound, when I was in the house alone and practicing the piano. I looked up and saw Dad’s photograph on the piano; and suddenly, like I was crazy all of a sudden, I heard the thunder and then I started to cry. It made me feel sick. But after that, I didn’t cry again.
Until now.
Everybody was crying, including me, and Crock-a-shit excused both of us so we could pay our respects to the departed (that’s just what he said). As soon as we were out of their reach, he said, “Steve, you’re good at this.”
“So are you,” I said, pretending that it was all an act. “Now let’s get it over with.”
“Okay,” Crocker said, and we stood right before the casket and looked into it. I could smell the flowers—the ones with the long wormy things inside them—but they didn’t smell bad. The kid in the casket was wearing a suit and tie … just like us. He looked like Pug Flanders, who lived down the block from me: The corpse had black hair, which was greased back; he had probably worn it in a DA with an elephant’s trunk in the front, but whoever did him up probably thought a flattop was the height of coolness. It looked like he had had pimples, too, but his face was coated with makeup; and it looked too white, like someone had gone crazy with the powder or something. The expression on his face was kind of snarly: I guess they couldn’t wipe it off. I had a strong feeling that I would have liked this guy.
But looking down at this corpse made me feel sort of weird. Not that I was scared anymore, but this kid didn’t really seem to be dead. It was like this was some sort of a play, and everybody was acting, just as we were.
The Year's Best SF 09 # 1991 Page 71
