Plenty of guys defected, kid. They were scared, and they loved their chicken asses more than they loved their country. I'm not sayin’ that's your old man for certain. Hell, Bernie seemed like a decent guy. But there's plenty of guys living up there north of the dmz with gook wives that left more than their country behind. All I'm saying is, I never saw Bernie go down. All I saw was him running.
* * * *
When Steve kissed Norman's mother he liked to squeeze her ass. The first time Norman witnessed this he almost started crying. Almost. Even then, at age eight, he was past crying about anything. It stuck in his head, though. Steve's big ape's paw grabbing a handful of his mother's ass, the way her housedress bunched up. And Steve looked right at Norman, letting the kid know who owned what in that house. Who was boss. It was the comic burning thing all over again, but worse.
* * * *
Norman wiped his eyes with the heels of his hands. The buildings leaned and twisted over the sidewalk. Brassy jazz issued from nightclub doorways. Mutated simulacra of vintage Detroit steel rounded city blocks, headlights aimed at unaligned angles, as if searching for something. A girl screamed his name, and Norman stopped. He squinted, listening. Scout looked up at him.
"Was that real?” Norman asked.
"The girl? Absolutely."
"Where—"
"What am I, your guide dog?"
"Where?"
"Okay, okay. Sheesh. Follow me."
Scout turned and trotted back to the last nightclub they'd passed, Norman stepping quickly after her. Red neon tubing pretzeled into a symbol unrecognizable to Norman. A black man of sumo proportions lounged in the doorway with his arms crossed. He wore a leather vest and small, round, perfectly black sunglasses.
"Yeah?” he said.
The girl screamed again. She screamed, and Norman knew who she was.
First love.
He started to go inside but the bouncer or whatever he was stepped in front of him.
"You aren't on the list."
"What the hell's going on in there?"
"Nothing of interest to you.” The bouncer dropped a huge hand on Norman's shoulder and squeezed, not too hard, but hard enough to indicate it wasn't a friendly gesture.
Norman slugged him.
It was a reflex, and his rage was behind it, and it surprised him as much as it surprised the bouncer, who fell back clutching at his gut. His face clenched in an ugly knot. He started to reach out, and Norman side-kicked his knee. The bouncer hit the ground and did not bounce. Norman stepped over him. Scout followed at his heels, thought-projecting:
"Nice work."
The interior of the club was dark. Smoke layered the air in noxious strata. It wasn't all cigarette smoke, either. The trio on stage were smoldering, the trumpet player in particular. Or was it a quartet? The chanteuse in a black dress lay sprawled at the front of the stage, and she was the smokiest of them all, like a thing burned out of the sky by lasers. Norman pushed forward between the crowded tables. When he got closer he saw that the chanteuse was just a kid, a teenager. In fact she was the girl he used to hold hands with in high school. Connie.
Somebody grabbed his arm and yanked him around.
"You're not on the list.” It was a different guy, but he shared dimensions similar to those of the toppled sumo, not to mention the same one-track mind. Before Norman's new-found reflexes could assert themselves, sumo number two slapped him hard across the jaw with an open hand that felt like a mahogany plank. Norman staggered back, upsetting one of the dinner plate-sized tables. A glass tumbler broke on the floor. A man sitting at the table yanked on Norman's lapel and snarled an obscenity. Scout bit the man's ankle. The man yelped, and Norman pulled free.
"That dog's not on the list, neither,” the new bouncer said. He was now holding an automatic.
Norman hit him squarely on the nose. The bouncer dropped the gun and spun away, spraying blood through fingers cupped over his face. Norman retrieved the automatic and tucked it in his belt.
The trio kept playing.
Norman approached the stage. It was Connie, all right. Around the girl's neck there hung on a fine gold chain a vial of amber liquid. Norman glanced up at the trumpet player, who continued to blow, his round face streaming sweat, whiffs of smoke lifting from his hair, his shirt collar, even the bell of his trumpet. His eyes, rolled down to meet Norman's, seemed to be mostly egg-white sclera. Norman looked away, back to the fallen chanteuse, his lost first love, from whom he now derived only righteous anger. He closed his hand around the vial and tugged it once, breaking the delicate chain.
Connie wavered, like a body seen through disturbed water, and then she vanished.
The music stopped. For a moment the musicians looked confused, directionless. The horn player wiped his mouthpiece on the sleeve of his white jacket. “That kid was good,” he said, then caught a new tempo with his snapping fingers, brought the horn to his lips, and resumed something bluesy, sans smoke.
"What have you got there?” Scout said.
Norman twisted the stopper out and sniffed. “Bon Nuit."
"Naturally."
Norman replaced the stopper. He slipped the vial into the inside pocket of his overcoat next to the comic.
"You!” someone shouted.
He turned, his London Fog sweeping over the crowded tables like a cape but never upsetting a glass. The bouncer with the squirty nose had found some friends. One looked like a stick figure in a black tie. The stick figure was smoking a cigarette in a long onyx holder. He gestured, briefly, and one of the big boys next to him pointed a gun at Norman. The music halted for the second time, and patrons evacuated tables. Norman grinned. He snatched the automatic from his waist band and triggered it rapidly. The big man's gun sparked and spun out of his hand. A second slug struck his gun arm. Norman glided across the room. The unwounded bouncer made a grab for him, but Norman chopped at his windpipe, sending him gasping to the floor.
The stick figure casually removed the cigarette holder from his thin lips. “I could use a man like you."
"I bet."
"I assume there is some purpose in your chaotic visit to my establishment."
Norman produced the vial of perfume. “This. Don't lie. I can see you recognize it."
"I do indeed."
"Well?"
"A trifle purchased from a military gentleman. I thought it might improve the band. It did."
Scout lunged past Norman and latched onto the throat-chopped bouncer's arm. At the end of the arm the recovered automatic went off, sending a slug into the ceiling. Norman twisted the gun out of the man's hand, tucked it away next to the other gun, then moved in on the stick figure, lifting him up and throwing him back against the wall. He knocked the cigarette holder away, then pulled one of the automatics and pressed the barrel against the little man's very pale forehead.
"This military gentleman. Where can I find him?"
"I wouldn't—"
"Where?” Norman pressed harder with the barrel. The manager grimaced.
"He used to run a shop on the outskirts. Now he does business out of the Bijou on Fifty-second Street. That's what I understand. Now please leave."
Norman put his gun away. There was a red circle third eye in the middle of the manager's forehead.
"Come on, Scout."
* * * *
"We shot that place up pretty good, and I still don't hear any sirens. You've got lazy cops around here."
"They aren't lazy,” Scout said. “They don't even exist. This is a lawless place. No attorneys, either, by the way. Except in comic books. There's the theater."
At the end of the block golf ball-sized light bulbs raced each other around a marquee: Ronald Colman in Lost Horizon. Smaller letters crawling along the bottom of the marquee spelled out: Open all night, continuous shows plus news reels.
"They're a little behind around here,” Norman said.
"Progress is relative."
"Let's get this over with,” he said, striding towa
rd the Bijou. “I want to go home."
* * * *
The ticket window was unmanned but the doors stood open. Norman and Scout entered the lobby and discovered it empty and redolent of hot buttered popcorn.
"Will you kill him?” Scout asked.
Norman gave the dog a dirty look. “Hell no."
"Because you could get away with it here."
"I said no."
"Why not?"
"Because.” Norman swallowed. “Because I'm the good guy."
"I'm sorry,” Scout said. “I just thought you should say it out loud."
It was easy to spot the thief. There was only one head visible in the sea of theater seats.
"Wait here,” Norman said.
"Check."
Norman walked down the center aisle and stopped at the end of the thief's row. On the big screen Ronald Colman desperately searched a frozen wasteland for signs of Shangri-La.
"Do you even know who I am?” the thief said, without looking at Norman.
"Yes."
The thief turned away from the screen. Bernie Helmcke's face was young and smooth, the face of a man in the last blush of youth. Movie light shifted over his features. Norman collapsed a little inside but fought not to show it. At that moment he realized he had been fighting his whole life not to show it.
"Why'd you do it, Dad?"
"I was compelled. Do you know what the most valuable commodity in the Universe is? The greatest binding force? The Universal Integument? Do you know what it is?"
Bernie had to raise his voice to be heard over the swelling musical score as the end credits began to roll. Norman stared at him.
"Love,” the thief said.
* * * *
They walked up the aisle together. Bernie was wearing an olive drab infantryman's uniform. Norman was taller than his father, but he felt reduced, a child. He tried to make his hands into fists, but his rage had deserted him at last.
"Come on,” Bernie said, patting his back, “I'll buy you breakfast."
"No, thanks. I already ate with the dog."
* * * *
Norman, his dead father, and his imaginary dog walked toward the edge of the world.
"What time is it?” Norman asked.
"There isn't any time here."
"What about the dawn? When—"
"There is no dawn. Don't ask me how that's possible. All I know is this. We're here to serve the ultimate proliferation of love, which vitalizes the Universe. There are beings who see to this. I don't know what they are. I wouldn't call them angels. They look inside us, and they spin out these worlds. They tell stories, give us roles, harvest the vital end-product; I believe they must be insane. I mean, look around. You see, son, death isn't what we thought it was."
They arrived at the edge of the world. Beyond the jagged paving, stars suggested themselves out of the void.
"I'm going home,” Norman said.
"Son—"
"Look, I don't believe it. I can't. And if this is a dream I want out. I want to feel normal again."
Norman stepped off the edge, blurred briefly, and found himself walking toward his dad and his dog. He stopped.
"Bottom line, Norm,” Scout said, “the way you feel is normal."
"True,” his father said. “This is the place that hurts, son. The place where love resumes."
A car that looked like a DeSoto with great oval headlights on flexible stalks screeched around the corner and braked sideways in the middle of the street. The doors flung open and men with guns piled out.
"Dat's him,” the biggest one said, pointing at Norman. Norman's reactions were unconscious and lightning quick. He filled his hands with the twin automatics and brought down two of the armed men before either of them could get a shot off. Unfortunately the third man was fast enough to fire a Tommy gun burst before Norman could drill him.
The Tommy burst stitched across Bernie Helmcke's chest.
The DeSoto squealed away, leaving behind bodies like bales of newspapers.
Norman dropped his guns. He sank to his knees at his father's side.
"I'm finished,” Bernie said. “Again."
Norman felt it coming—the flood he'd dammed a lifetime ago.
"In my right pocket,” Bernie said. “Keys for my apartment. Scout knows where it is.” He coughed, misting the air with blood. “You'll need a place."
"Dad—"
"I'm sorry, son. I love you."
A savage coughing fit took him, and when it was over, so was the thief.
The world contracted into a throbbing locus of pain under Norman's heart.
"The apartment,” Scout said. “—it isn't much. Deli on the ground floor. A noisy deli. Two flights up to a hot plate and a smelly carpet. Of course, I have a sensitive nose."
Norman sat down in the street.
"At least you don't have to worry about anybody finding you there,” Scout said. “But you'll need some kind of disguise when you go out. You could use my scarf, if you want."
Norman closed his eyes, the flood all through him now. The terrible thing. The love.
Scout bit his ear.
"Ow!"
The dog backed away. “You better get off your dead ass. This is a tough world. And as of today you're the only lawman in it. Norman, there are innocent people here. You can do something."
Norman fingered his lobe, which was not bleeding."You're a real son of a bitch, you know that?"
"You're half right, sweetheart."
Norman found the key in his father's pocket. He lifted the body in his arms and carried it to the edge of the world and held it a moment longer before letting it roll away into the star twinkle. He waited, but it did not roll back. After a while, compelled, The Avenger of Love turned toward the City of Endless Night.
—For Harlan
[Back to Table of Contents]
Novelet: "A Wild and a Wicked Youth" by Ellen Kushner
Ms. Kushner notes, “This story came to me in a flash in the darkness of a Waterson/Carthy concert last year, when the English folk artists let fly with their awesome rendition of the traditional outlaw ballad, “Newry Town” (also known as “The Newry Highwayman"): A young man, clearly a nice boy, “turns out to be a roving blade” and comes to a bad end while his mother cries, and everyone agrees, “There goes a wild and a wicked youth.”
While the song's plotline does not really match my story's, it got me on the right path. I'd been wanting for a long time to write about the early life of Richard St. Vier, the gifted swordsman in my first novel, Swordspoint: a Melodrama of Manners. I've always known who Richard's mother was, and how he learned to fight; but it occurred to me that nobody else did, and it was time to get it down on paper."
"He's dead, Mother."
"Who's dead, Richard?"
His mother did not look up from rolling out her pastry. They lived in the country; things died. And her son did not seem particularly upset. But then, he seldom did. She was raising him not to be afraid of anything if she could help it.
"The man in the orchard."
Octavia St. Vier carefully put down her rolling pin, wiped her hands on her apron, and tucked up her skirts. At the door she slipped into her wooden clogs, because it was spring and the ground was still muddy. The boy followed her out to the orchard, where a man lay still as the grave under an apple tree, his hands clutching tight at something on his chest.
"Oh, love, he's not dead."
"He smells dead,” said her son.
Octavia chuckled. “He does that. He's dead drunk, is all, and old and probably sick. He's got good boots, but they're all worn out, see? He must have come a long way."
"What's he holding?” Before she could think to stop him, her son reached between the old man's hands to tug at the end of what he clutched in the folds of his messy cloak.
Like a corpse in a comedy, the old man sat suddenly bolt upright, still gripping one end of the long pointed object whose other end was in her son's hands. It was the end of a s
word, sheathed in cracked leather. Octavia was not usually a screamer, but she screamed.
"Rarrrrrr,” the old man growled furiously. It seemed to be all he could manage at the moment, but his meaning was clear.
"Richard,” Octavia said, as carefully as if she were back at her girlhood elocution lessons—though this was not the sort of sentence they had been designed for—"put the man's sword down."
She could tell her son didn't want to. His hand was closed around the pommel, encircled itself by a swirl of metal which no doubt had its own special name as well. It was a beautiful object; its function was clearly to keep anything outside from touching the hand within.
The old man growled again. He tugged on the sword, but he was so weak, and her son's grip held so fast, that it only separated scabbard from blade. Octavia saw hard steel emerge from the leather. “Richard...” She used the Voice of Command that every mother knows. “Now."
Her son dropped the sword abruptly, and just as abruptly scrambled up the nearest tree. He broke off a branch, which was strictly forbidden, and waved it at the sky.
The old man pulled the weapon back into his personal aura of funk, rags, hunger, and age. He coughed, hawked, spat, repeated that, and dragged himself up until his back was to the apple tree's trunk.
"Quick little nipper,” he said. “'Sgonna break his neck."
Octavia shielded her eyes to look up at the boy in the tree. “Oh,” she said, “he never falls. You get used to it. Would you like some water?"
* * * *
The old man didn't clean up particularly well, but he did clean up. When he was sober, he cut wood and carried water for their little cottage. He had very strong arms. He did stay sober long enough to spend all of one day and most of the next sanding every inch of his rust-pocked blade—there was quite a lot of it, it was nearly as tall as the boy's shoulder—and then oiling it, over and over. He wouldn't let anyone help. Richard did offer. But the old man said he made him nervous, always wriggling about like that, couldn't he keep still for one god-blasted moment, and get off that table, no not up into the rafters you're enough to give a man palpitations now get outta here if you can't keep still.
FSF, April-May 2009 Page 8
