by Dan O'Shea
Know why strangers don’t sit together on the fountain wall? So they don’t have to talk to each other. Keeps them safe.
But I’m not your normal stranger.
I walk over, sandals crunching the pebbles beneath my feet. Go straight to where the girl is and sit down next to her. Just enough of a gap to make sure we’re not touching.
Doesn’t say anything at first. Carries on reading, but takes her hand from the water and bends forward to shift her bag away from me to the other side of her feet. It’s one of those shoulder bags from the hippy shop, bright colours and tassels and made of wool. Probably doesn’t even have anything valuable in it.
Reason people move their bags when I sit next to them is that they think I’m a robber. Think I’ll be grabbing their possessions and running away with them.
“You’ll strain your eyes reading in this light,” I say, all concerned.
She doesn’t speak but gives a little smile so I know that she’s heard.
“What’s the book?”
This time she moves. Lifts the cover far enough so I can see it. There’s a painting of a woman brushing her hair and some words.
“Any good?” I ask.
“So so.” It’s good when people talk back. It means they like me.
I pick out my cigarette box from my shirt pocket. I always buy shirts with pockets in.
Open the box, pull a couple out a little and hold them over to her. “Smoke?”
She smiles. Brushes her long, black hair from her face and looks straight at me. Pretty eyes she has. Blue so pale they look like mercury has spilled around her pupil.
Mercury’s a planet. It’s also a poisonous metal in case you didn’t know.
She closes the book and puts it in her lap, then reaches over and takes a smoke.
I take one, too.
Always have a lighter in the packet. Take it out and roll the wheel, feel the hard rub of the flint and hold the flame out.
There’s not a breath of wind and there’s no flicker. I do the cupped-hand thing out of habit, though.
She puffs in and out. I follow suit.
“Know why people smoke?” I ask. She shakes her head. “ It’s not the nicotine like everyone says. It’s the smoke coming out of them. Reminds them that they exist. That they’re really there. Like they can see themselves in the world.”
“I never thought about it that way.” Of course she didn’t. Nobody does.
It’s like I’m her instructor. “Same reason folk like the freezing cold. The misty breath they make.”
“Guess so.”
We carry on smoking and she’s kicking her heals against the wall, her Hush Puppies making a dull thud. I like the way she does it. The way the rhythm beats in time with the music from the water.
We smile at each other at the same time. Maybe she thinks I’m going to chat her up. And maybe I am.
“So you come here often?” She laughs when she asks the question, the kind of laugh that’s full of life and energy. Like she’s been practicing.
“I come for the music,” I tell her. I know that she does, too, it’s just that she doesn’t realise it.
“Cool.”
And we’re quiet again until the smokes are done.
We drop our butts to the floor at the same time and grind them into the gravel.
She stands up. Brushes the ash from her long black dress and flattens out the creases.
“Well, it’s getting dark,” she says. “I’ll need to be getting home.” She’s right about the light. The dusk makes the lights at the edge of the park glow like stars. Makes everything else look like it’s covered in a layer of dust. Even the girl’s eyes have lost their silvery shine.
“Thanks for the cigarette,” she says. “It was nice.”
Know why people say ‘nice’? It’s so they don’t have to say what they mean. Either that or they’ve got a stunted vocabulary. But this girl reads books.
“You shouldn’t dangle your fingers in the water,” I tell her. “Those fish are liable to take a chunk.”
She stops. Tilts her head. Looks at the water then back at me.
“There are fish?”
“Sure are.” I take out my lighter. Roll the wheel and hold the shimmering flame over the pond. I look down and see my reflection. It has no colour. No life.
Know why we like to see our reflections? It’s because we can see where we came from. I see my dad when I look in the mirror.
I stare at myself. Wait for her to arrive.
She takes small steps and stops a couple of feet away.
I point at the water. “See?”
She shifts closer.
I move my hand like my finger’s following something.
She bends closer still.
I smell soap. Apple.
Hook her around the neck and pull her in.
Hold her under.
Her head shakes like she’s epileptic. Her legs kick at air.
You know why people like it when they can see bubbles come from their mouths? It’s like the smoke thing. Reminds them they exist. Gives them something of themselves to look at.
The first bubble’s small. It reaches the surface and lingers.
Then come the others in a rush like empty-headed commuters. The popping and the screaming join the symphony that the water plays. Bring the piece to a crescendo. complete the mood like crashing cymbals.
Know why I do these things.
I don’t have all the answers.
You figure it out.
THE JUDGEMENT OF ROLAND J. MONROE
Kieran Shea
When the big stranger dropped his bundle down on the bar, I had a bad feeling.
“Whiskey….”
Gaston Durand, the tavern’s lone employee and a whip-thin man of significant bodily odors, glanced up from a book of Twain. I knew the book was Twain because I’d loaned it to that skinny prick a month before and he had yet to finish it. Gaston claimed he was having all sorts of trouble with the humor. That was fine. Hell, I liked Gaston, and I sure wasn’t going anywhere any time soon.
Gaston gestured to the big man’s bundle on the bar. “What is this?”
The stranger dipped his head and then thumbed the brim of his wet Homburg. “None of your business,” he answered brusquely. “Just do what I asked and pour me a drink. And don’t tell me you ain’t got none ‘cause of no Volstead Act.”
I leaned back in a cane-webbed chair near the tavern’s cast iron stove and ventured a peek out the window. Two days of heavy rain had the four buildings of Pine Fork, Maine looking drowned. Across the way, I saw the stranger’s packhorses tied to a scrawny birch. Both beasts appeared beaten and ready to feed the poor.
Setting a glass down in front of the stranger, Gaston pulled a bottle of rye from beneath the bar and poured. The big man withdrew a wallet from somewhere inside his musky clothes and tossed down a couple of damp bills.
“How much does that get me?”
Gaston picked up the limp bills and counted. “This depends,” Gaston answered, casting a wary eye at the bundle, “How much does monsieur plan to drink this afternoon?”
“What?”
“I said…how much do you plan to drink?”
“What’re you? Some kind of Frenchie?”
“No, I am from Quebec.”
The stranger threw back his glass of rye and scowled. “Well, you be in the United States of ‘Merica now so do me a favor and speak the language. You Canadians. I seen plenty of your type over there in the war. Just looking at you I bet you’re the sort that didn’t even lift a finger to join the cause.”
Gaston shrugged.
“See? Look at that. I’m a psychic. A regular Houdini.”
“I was in prison,” Gaston said.
“Oh, yeah? Prison? What for?”
“I hit a man.”
“And they sent you to prison for that?”
Gaston sighed. “He was a solicitor’s nephew.”
The stranger grunted and ro
lled a peevish look in my direction. I lazed my eyes indifferent and slurped some coffee from my mug as Gaston doled out another slug of throat-scorching rye.
“I need me a whore,” the stranger announced and then threw back his second drink.
“There is a place,” Gaston said, pouring again, “Two or so miles from here out near the three ponds. This place, they have women if that is what you need.”
“Is that so?”
“This is what I am saying.”
Of course I knew the place that Gaston was referring to. A low ceiling bunker of mismatched logs with a moss covered roof and an interior choked with bear grease stink and smoke. Bunch of toothless Penobscot half-breeds lousy with disease and their heavily armed benefactor—a loony Scotsman by the name of Cunningham. I’d hired Cunningham a few times running down organizers trying to establish toeholds in the logging camps and that ornery son of a bitch was my kind of trouble. A real snake of a man with one milky eye and prone to long jags of insomnia that left him starved for reason. When you wanted to put the scare into somebody, I’ve always found that using half-mad crazies like Cunningham to be an advantage. Some said Cunningham wandered the woods at night and sang songs in a strange tongue. I could give a shit. He was a man who’d beat anyone for a dollar and that was about as far as my relationship went with him.
Above his beard, the stranger’s cave-like nostrils flared. He downed his third pour of whiskey. “Two or so more miles, huh? Hell, that ain’t bad, not as far as I’ve come but I really should give my horses a breather. Hey, what’s that I smell? You got something boiling on the stove back there, Frenchie?”
Gaston arched an eyebrow. “Boiling?”
“Yeah.”
“This is not a laundry.”
“No shit, dummy. What you got on the stove?”
“Oh, you mean cooking? Ah. Now I understand. I am making stew.”
“Stew, huh? You put any meat in it?”
“Of course.”
“What kind?”
“Some bacon, a little venison.”
“Any turnip in it?”
“Potatoes, leeks, a few carrots….”
“But no turnip? Hate me some turnip.”
“No. No turnip.”
The stranger waved a hand. “Well, why don’t you do me a big ol’ favor and fetch me a bowl. Bring me a hunk of bread too while you’re at it too. That stew of yours tastes half as good as it smells, I’m partial to wiping my plate clean.”
Gaston started to put the bottle of rye back underneath the bar, but the stranger rapped his thick knuckles on the wood. Begrudgingly, Gaston left the bottle noting the liquor’s level inside, wiped his hands on his apron, and headed back towards the tavern’s kitchen.
I looked out the window and watched the rain some more.
“Hey, you.”
I turned. The stranger’s big head had swiveled back in my direction, but the rest of his body remained hunched over the bar. From across the room I noted his very small eyes.
“Yeah?”
“Have you been out to there?
“Where?”
“To that place. The whores.”
I shook my head.
“Married sort, huh?”
I shook my head again.
“Preacher?”
“Would I be sitting around in a tavern like this on a Tuesday afternoon if I were a preacher?”
“Don’t know. Maybe you’re on holiday.”
“Wouldn’t know what that’s like.”
“Priests drink some.”
I gestured to my clothes and that seemed to settle the matter between us. He turned back around and refilled his glass with rye.
“Four or so days’ march to the Boston passenger trains,” the stranger said. “You ever find your way down to Boston, friend?”
“Sure.”
“I’ve seen priests drinking in bars down in Boston back before all this Prohibition horseshit started, and believe you me, something ain’t right about that. Stupid papists. Gets so a man can’t take it no more, know what I’m saying? To think I saw men like you and me, white men, dying over there for this country and for what? For what? Great melting pot, my ass. Me, I was raised Presbyterian back upstate New York. Growing up, when my Pa wasn’t hiding the living hell out of me, my Pa used to say—son, Christ only lives in the heart of a man at peace with his actions. Only the Lord can judge.”
I finished off the rest of my coffee and fished out a Chesterfield. Two scrapes of a match later, I had my smoke going. I tried to mind my own business, but the man prattled on.
“So, you. No wife or special gal to speak of, no whoring out by the ponds…you ain’t one of them sissy types, are you?”
I sucked in some smoke and exhaled off to the side. “No, sir,” I answered, “not in the least. Sometimes when I’m real good and randy I’ll catch me a ride on one of the lumber scows and head down Portland ways to get my ashes hauled. They got some fine-looking ladies down in Portland. Lots of Swedes and blonde Danes.”
“This bughouse sure ain’t Portland.”
“A square truth in that.”
“What company you up here working for?”
“I’m on contract with a bunch of mills.”
“Oh, yeah? In a tavern?”
“I’ve special responsibilities.”
“Special responsibilities include sitting around on your ass and drinking coffee?”
“On occasion.”
“Must be nice.”
“What you got in that bundle there?”
As the stranger’s eyes iced, he straightened and turned fully around to face me. The flaps of his coat parted as he turned about, and I saw a huge hunting knife lashed to his gut—big as a soup ladle.
With a reach he lifted the bundle from the bar and brought it around, and from all the way across the room I saw the dark, ruddy stains. Gaston returned with the man’s stew from around back and looked at me, just as the big man dropped the bundle on the floorboards with a heavy, damp thunk.
“Go on now,” he said, bobbing his chin. “You two sons of bitches are so interested in my bundle why don’t you come on over and take a look.”
I drew in some smoke, forced out a long plume, and flicked my ash, unimpressed. I stood and sauntered over. The man’s eyes watched me like a pair of sputtering flies. Some of the rags that bound the bundle together had unraveled from the fall to the floor, and when I looked down I found myself squinting because I wasn’t sure of what I was seeing. Between sections of peeled away rags I saw a tuft of brown hair and a human ear gone gray and green with maggots and decay.
A ball of smooth ice lolled in my stomach.
“Is that what I think it is?”
Gaston ventured a look over the bar. When he saw the ear, he immediately steamed back to the kitchen.
“That is the head of one Rowland J. Monroe,” the stranger said.
I planted my hands on my knees and crouched a bit lower to get a closer look at the head. The wet stench of rotted meat was strong. “Sweet Jesus, man. How did you come to be carrying somebody’s head?”
“How do you think?”
“You found it?”
“Guess again.”
I straightened and took a couple of steps back. I took a half-hearted drag on my cigarette and crushed it under my shoe. The walls of the tavern seemed impossibly close all of a sudden, and I found myself trying to will a regular rhythm back into my breathing. I couldn’t help but wonder how far the man could reach with that knife of his.
“Well,” I managed finally, “This sure does beat all, don’t it? Damn—a man’s head? Have to say, that was not what I was expecting. No, sir…that was not what I was expecting at all. What did you say his name was again?”
“Rowland J. Monroe.”
“What did this Monroe fellow do anyway?”
“Son of a bitch took to bed with my wife.”
“No.”
“Yup. Happened while I was away in the war. Once I got
back home I started to notice people staring at me around town, and then finally I forced one of them to spill the beans. Shock of it nearly killed me. My wife? That Jezebel was already dead in the ground with consumption by then or she’d have shared a similar fate, believe me. This piece of trash? Skedaddled. Took me more than a little while to track him down. I found him working at one of them granite quarries over in New Hampshire. Surprise of his life when I showed up that afternoon I’ll tell you that. Worst thing was he said it was all my dead wife’s idea, them two rooting behind my back like a couple of dogs in heat.”
“So, you…uh…you just—”
“What”
“Chopped off his head?”
“And then some.”
“And you’ve been riding around with it?”
“Ain’t been riding, fool. I’ve been on foot mostly. Been what you might call scattering.”
I paused. “Good God, man. All of him?”
“Seemed fit,” the stranger replied. “Piece here, piece there. Less obvious that way. I’ve only been at it a week or so, and the smell ain’t as bad as you might think. Guy like you, you probably have no idea what real death smells like.”
“How much of him do you have left besides his head?”
“His right leg and an arm, but this head here is the next to go. Then I’m going to finish the whole affair with his weenie. See, I saved that for last. Got his weenie in a jar like a summer pickle. Might just feed it to a crow.”
“Kind of risky, don’t you think?”
“What? Feeding his weenie to a crow?”
“No, you know what I mean.”
“Oh. The law is pretty scant up here.”
“Still, when you consider your particular method of disposal….”
“What, you saying what I done ain’t just?”
“No, not at all. I mean, what did you say before?”
“When?”
“The thing about how only the Lord can judge?”
“When did I say that?”
“Just before, a few minutes back.”
“I sometimes can’t remember little things.”
Gaston came around from the back just then and when I saw him I immediately spun for the front door. Gaston had the stock of a Winchester trencher shotgun jammed high on his shoulder. Once outside, I bolted for my Model A truck parked across the muddy street. I had a logging company issued Colt revolver stashed beneath the truck’s front bench wrapped up in an old wool shirt. I grabbed the Colt, checked it, and ran back through the rain, skidding inside just as Gaston settled his bead.
