Fell of Dark

by Patrick Downes

  The very next Monday, Holt described an incident between a boy and a barber to my homeroom. “This boy, Jimmy, needed a haircut. The boy, about your age, walked by a barbershop. He asked the barber how much for a haircut, and the barber told him to get lost.”

  The class couldn’t believe it. “He didn’t tell the kid?”

  “No,” Holt said.

  “That’s just wrong,” the class said. “What’d the kid do?”

  “What could he do?” Holt said. “He walked away.”

  “He walked away?” At this point, the class blew apart into a dozen small discussions.

  Holt watched us. I watched Holt.

  “Enough,” Holt said. He went to his desk. “We have other things to do.”

  My class discussed strategies for dealing with a barber. A rude barber. Holt went through his handouts.

  “Mr. Holt?”

  Holt answered without looking up: “Yes?”

  “That happened to you, didn’t it?”

  Silence.

  “Who said that?”

  “You went to the barber,” I said. “Not some kid. Right?”

  “No, Thorn.” Holt tried not to explode. He kept on pretending to look over his papers. “Though every one of us has a story like that.”

  “A story like what, Mr. Holt?” Not me this time. Candace Ingram. All curls and teeth.

  “Like the one I just told.” Holt turned red. “Sometimes strangers are rude to us.”

  “Oh,” Candace said. “The way the barber was rude to you?”

  “No,” Holt said, but we all knew. His tone of voice and his redness. His eyes swirling like soup. “Now, let’s get back to work. And Thorn? See me at the end of the day.”

  “Thorn, we’ve had our run-ins.” Holt leaned back in his chair, crossed his legs, and locked his fingers on top of his head. “But I thought we came away from those times as friends. I was prepared to forget last Friday because we’re friends. Right, Thorn?”

  I peeled a Band-Aid off my thumb. With my teeth.

  “Right?” Holt looked at the ceiling. “Thorn?”

  “What?”

  “Why do you do that?” Holt’s anger spilled out again. “We’re friends, yes?” he said.

  I shrugged. “I guess.” I opened the cut on my thumb, and it bled.

  Holt watched as I stopped the bleeding with my T-shirt.

  “Thorn?” Holt bent forward in his chair. “Do you remember the story I told this morning?”

  “Yes.”

  “What would you have done with the barber?”

  I checked my thumb. “I wouldn’t’ve walked away.”

  Holt cleared his throat. “Yes, that’s probably true. But what would you have done?”

  “Was it you?” I spoke to my bleeding thumb. “I won’t tell. I just want to know.”

  Holt loosened his green knit tie and unbuttoned his collar. “Did you steal that money from John?”

  “Yes,” I lied. Strong. Who knows what happened to the dum-dum’s money? “I stole it.”

  “You—”

  I interrupted him. “So was it you in the story?”

  “I swear I’ll have you thrown out of this school.”

  “Whatever,” I said. “You can’t stand up to a man, and you can’t stand up to a boy.”

  Holt pushed his chair away and walked to the classroom door. He shook as he closed the door.

  I knew what was coming. I wanted him to do it.

  “It was you. Just say it. It doesn’t matter. A rude and stupid barber: so what? Like you said, we all have stories. Just say it.”

  “Shut up, Thorn, shut up.”

  “Just say it, Mr. Holt.” I stood up. “Just say, ‘The barber was rude to me, and I couldn’t do anything about it.’ Say it.”

  “Thorn.”

  “Say it, Mr. Holt. I know it’s you. Tell the truth. Say it’s you. Say it. Say it, and we can go home.”

  The slap, when it came, crumpled me against the desk. I must have cried out. But Holt would’ve heard only a hum coming from his right hand. A hum surrounded by silence.

  We are the Guardians. We speak. Listen to us.

  Human beings.

  Human beings. All of you. We know your kind.

  nocourage notruth nocourage notruth nocourage notruth nocourage notruth nocourage notruth nocourage notruth nocourage notruth

  no courage no truth

  We know your kind. You don’t want to think, you don’t want to care, you don’t want to have mercy, you don’t want to show consideration. You want your comfort. You want your protection.

  No truth. No courage.

  Worthless.

  A pigeon followed me. “Go away.” The bird kept coming. “Get away from me.” It went up the front steps of the apartment building, and as I went up in the elevator, I heard it walking up the façade, up the concrete walls, up and up, its talons clicking. Why didn’t it fly?

  The pigeon found my room. It started pecking a hole through the glass of my window. It stopped only to tell me one thing. “It’s no use,” it said. “I’ll get to you.” I heard it as if it were on the inside of the glass, not on the outside.

  How could a pigeon talk to me? And how could it kill me? Did Kulthat send it out of hell?

  “This is ridiculous,” I said. “You can’t kill me.”

  “Watch me.”

  “I’ll kill you first.” This seemed like a good idea. “I’ll kill you first. I’ll kill you first.”

  “No you won’t.”

  I opened the window, and the pigeon swelled up. I grabbed it, and it pecked at my fingers. My knuckles. I got angry.

  I crushed it in my hands. Once I saw a bus run over a pigeon, and the bird burst like a paper bag filled with air. POP!

  Those hollow bones broke. POP!

  This happened with the demon-bird. It popped. Then it disappeared from my hands. I stood at the window. Blood on my face, my shirt, my hands. The pigeon gone, gone like it was never there.

  The pigeon had disappeared. I couldn’t speak, but I felt something on my tongue. A word?

  It grew out of my tongue like a flower, or a blade of grass. It tickled the roof of my mouth. I couldn’t bear it. When I opened my mouth, a feather, gray, an inch long, swirled out. The feather rocked back and forth, back and forth, and landed in my hand. I shut my mouth.

  What was I to think?

  I tried to keep my mouth shut, I tried, but my cheeks swelled with feathers. They tickled my throat, the roof of my mouth. My teeth. I blew out a mouthful, and they scattered over my head. The wind caught them. They collided, rose up, and fell.

  More and more feathers. They swirled and tumbled. Feathers streamed from my mouth until they stopped.

  This happened.

  “You are a most unusual young man.”

  Who said it?

  The Architect? A Guardian? My Protector? Who?

  “You shouldn’t die. You should live. I will help you live.”

  “Why?” I said it out loud. “Why? What will I do? What’s my purpose? I’m nothing.”

  “No.”

  “I’m nothing. I’m nothing. I’m nothing. I’m nothing.”

  I cried.

  “I’m nothing. I’m nothing.”

  Silence.

  I wish all the voices I hear inside my head would melt down into one voice, a voice I can trust.

  I shave. If I don’t shave, I have this little beard and dirty mustache. Tufts of hair come out of my neck and one cheek. It’s ridiculous.

  I used Kulthat’s electric razor one time without asking. He wrapped the cord around my neck and shaved part of my arm.

  I once used Tillion’s razor. The one she uses for her legs. She screamed at me. “It’s useless. I cut open my ankle, you little wret
ch.” She sat me down and shaved my chin and lip and neck and cheek without using any soap and water. Against the grain of my skin.

  I burned, and blood ran down my face and throat.

  I don’t like to think about my childhood. Until I was almost five, Kermit and Tatiana provided for me, loved me. Then everything changed. Salome’s death. Poverty. My parents turning into demons that fly from their hell to punish and kill. The starvation and neglect.

  I found a razor that took the old-fashioned double-edged blades. In the bathroom cabinet. It had a black handle. Kermit must have used it once. The first time I used it just with water and the old blade. A rusted edge. Mistake. Cracks, scratches, fire, and blood.

  Late at night. My face hurting me. Hundreds of little cuts bleeding and burning.

  How would I buy new blades and shaving cream? I couldn’t ask Tillion and Kulthat. They would have said no to lending me money. I checked my room. I found sixty-three cents on the floor. Four pennies in my sock drawer. Sixty-seven cents. I needed a drink of water.

  I crept toward the kitchen opposite Kulthat and Tillion’s room. I crept, but Tillion still called, “Thorn?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Just need a drink.”

  Tillion came to the door in her robe. Disheveled from sleep and green light pouring out of her ears. “Come here,” she said and reached out her arm. I dreamed my mother, my real mother, would lend me the money to get what I needed. I wouldn’t even have to pay her back. Or, better, she would get it all for me.

  Not this, but something almost as strange happened. Tillion became Tatiana for a moment. My mother, Tatiana, put her hand on my head. “No fever,” she said, and kissed my forehead. She must have been in a dream. Dreaming I’m worth something.

  “I just need a drink.”

  I found Tillion’s purse on the kitchen counter. I unsnapped it and waited to see if this tiny sound would bring the demons running from their hell-room. They didn’t come. I took eight dollars, snapped the purse shut, and returned to my room. I forgot to pour some water.

  The next morning, I stopped at the drugstore. I asked the employee where I could find razors and shaving cream. “You need it for sure,” the guy said.

  I got angry. I said, “Nobody asked you.”

  “Oho, little man. Keep your voice down. Aisle eight.”

  I spent six dollars or so. I felt miserable. All day, my guilt and worry nauseated me. I left school wishing I could go somewhere other than home. I hoped Tatiana, or Tillion, hadn’t missed the money.

  Tillion, snow and fire and light, had missed it. She waited for me at the front gate.

  Silence. Tillion and I walked five minutes without a word. Finally, she spoke.

  “Eight dollars has real value to me. Eight dollars is food. Eight dollars goes to our rent.”

  I said nothing.

  “So what did you do with the money, Thorn? What could you possibly have needed it for? And why did you need it so desperately you had to steal it from me?”

  “I didn’t,” I said.

  Tillion gripped my arm in her talon. She stopped me in the street. “You didn’t take eight dollars from my purse?”

  “No, ma’am,” I said. “I didn’t.”

  “A thief and a liar, is that it? A coward?” My mother buried her nails in my arm. “Open your bag.”

  “What?”

  “You say, ‘Pardon, ma’am?’ You heard me, mister.” Tillion reached for my backpack. “Open it. Dump everything out.”

  I did as told and turned over my bag onto the sidewalk.

  “What did you buy? What did you buy?” Tillion searched all the pockets. Mumbling. She found nothing, no trace of her money, and she hesitated.

  At this moment of hesitation, I knew I was safe. I guessed she’d already started to ask herself where she lost her money. How she could be so careless.

  “I didn’t take your money.”

  Tillion, now Tatiana all over again, my mother, packed up my bag. “I’m sorry, Thorn, I thought—.” We walked. “But why were you so quiet?”

  “I don’t feel so good.”

  The tone in Tatiana’s voice, the confusion and regret when she apologized to me cut into my stomach. I felt sick with guilt. Even so, I wouldn’t admit my robbery. I wanted her to think the best of me. No thief and liar. She put her wrist against my forehead for the second time in a day. Told me she thought I had a slight fever, and I felt a little better. I imagined staying in bed under her care for the rest of my life. She would bring me toast and ginger ale every so often.

  The razor blades and cream? The razor from home? All at school. My locker. I shave when I have to, after school, in the boys’ bathroom.

  Two days ago, Candace Ingram—still mostly teeth and curls, taller—showed up while I was rinsing. I opened my eyes, and there she was, in the mirror, over my shoulder. I nearly screamed.

  “Where did you come from?”

  “Ninja moves.”

  “Ninja?”

  “I’ve been dying to know what you do in here. Now I know.”

  “And?”

  “And nothing. Maybe I can shave the back of your neck sometime.”

  “—?”

  “Your hair gets kind of long on your neck. I sit behind you. I’ve noticed.”

  “—?”

  “I could do it now,” she said. “If you want.”

  The whole time she stood behind me, sliding that razor over my neck, I thought my backbone would break through my skin. It felt that way. I thought I’d fall down.

  Everybody in me, my Protector, my Sawmen and Guardians, somewhere, even my Architect, wondered if Candace would cut me open with the razor. Leave me for dead on the floor. I felt their suspicion and rage. I heard their growls. I also felt her fingertips and the razor.

  Her face in the mirror. Her lips stretched tight over her teeth. Concentration.

  How long will she take? How long? Then—

  “Done,” she said, and ran the razor under the faucet. “How do you feel?”

  I checked my neck for blood. “You were gentle,” I said.

  “What did you expect?”

  “—”

  She handed me the razor: “I like you, Thorn. I always have.”

  I couldn’t say the same about her. Until that moment, it had never occurred to me to like anyone especially.

  “Don’t trust her,” the Guardians growled. “Your heart. We will make you suffer if you—.”

  “We could do this again,” she said.

  “When?” I said, and the Sawmen found their saws.

  “The rate you grow hair,” she said, “I’d say tomorrow.” And she turned to the door.

  “I’m not so sure you’re funny,” I said.

  For once, if someone had asked me what I was feeling, I would have said happy. Even then, as the saws sank in.

  What about the change in Tillion? Does she want to transform back into Tatiana? After ten years, why now? I can’t figure it out. Kulthat seems only to be Kulthat. Is my mother trying to get out of hell? Why?

  I don’t know what to do. Every time I try to think about it, I go to sleep. It’s as if a Protector flips a switch inside of me, and all I can do is put my head down. Sleep.

  facilis descensus Averno;

  noctes atque dies patet atri ianua Ditis;

  sed revocare gradum superasque evadere ad auras,

  hoc opus, hic labor est.

  Easy is the descent to Avernus, for the door to the underworld lies open both day and night. To retrace your steps and return to the breezes above, that’s the task, that’s the toil.

  Kulthat quotes this from the Aeneid. Avernus is another Gehenna, another hell. Maybe he wants to leave hell, but he’s too weak. He won’t stop the punishment. He punishes me, but he punishes himself, too.

  That day on
the beach, he let my sister swim out to me. A thirteen-year-old girl rescuing her almost-five-year-old brother. My father couldn’t be bothered to look up from the chessboard. My mother slept.

  Why didn’t he come out to me? Why did he let his daughter die? Why did we lose our shining star to a game of chess?

  My favorite word from chess. Zugzwang.

  When you have to make a move, but you wish the other player had to move. You want to pass, or miss a turn. You have to move, though. When you do, you’re suddenly weak.

  Zugzwang.

  The man next door must have gotten a new gun.

  Pop.

  I didn’t have to listen so hard to hear him.

  Poppoppop.

  And you’re smoke.

  I have this fantasy. My mother will come out of hell. My father, if he can’t come out, will die in his Gehenna. I want her to forgive me. I never wanted Salome, their shining star, my shining star, to turn into a seahorse. I want to stop feeling like a monster. Murderer. I want to have one voice in my head, mine.

  I want to feel normal. I want to be normal.

  The rattlecan rushes and rushes. All the stones, pebbles, stones, pebbles rolling around and the clattering clatters. The saws turn. Two, four, six, four saws at angles, spinning. The rattlecan teeters and totters. The stones and pebbles, and the saws cut through me. Arms fall down. Legs sprout legs, and my stomach bleeds.

  There is a wisdom that is woe; but there is a woe that is madness.

  —Herman Melville, Moby-Dick, or the Whale

  ERIK

  Still

  TWO YEARS BLEEDING. NO end. No reason.

  This is bad enough, but there’s worse.

  I haven’t found you.

  My bleeding’s invisible to everyone but myself. You would see, wouldn’t you? Only you, and you would take a little time out of your day to clean me up.