Like Light for Flies

by Lee Thomas

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Never mind, Mr. Royce. The why of it doesn’t matter.”

  “Tell me.” Royce pressed the gun into the skin and moved it back and forth causing ripples in the flesh.

  “You and your wife,” Winston said, his voice low and measured, “you were in the restaurant the night those men attacked my little girl. You left while it was happening. You heard her cries for help, and you did nothing. You kept walking because you couldn’t be bothered to help a meager restaurant hostess.”

  The accusation sent Royce back a step. It wasn’t true. Not exactly.

  He remembered the night Winston was talking about. After dinner, he and Monica had left the restaurant. They had been celebrating Monica’s recent raise. Both were eager to get home and continue the celebration in bed. Yes, they’d heard a girl shouting for help, but they hadn’t known who she was. For all they’d known, it was a trap, some kid trying to lead them into the dark park for her friends to rob or kill. The cries had grown more disturbing, and Royce had gone so far as to suggest calling nine-one-one, but Monica had stopped him.

  “Then we’ll be up all night giving statements to the police. There could be a trial. I don’t have time for a trial. Do you?”

  The argument had been convincing at the time. Maybe it was the wine. Maybe it was his anticipation of sex. Whatever the case, they’d wandered down the block and even managed to forget the incident before seeing the news about Winston’s daughter. By then, it was too late. The press would make them look like monsters if they came forward after the fact. No. They kept their silence and after a few months, they again forgot the incident entirely.

  “My baby girl was begging for her life and you walked away.”

  Royce thought to deny the claim, then threw the idea out. He was holding the gun. He hadn’t attacked the girl and neither had Monica. “She wasn’t our responsibility. We aren’t the police. We didn’t know what was happening.”

  “You didn’t care what was happening, because it wasn’t happening to you.”

  “How could you possibly even know we were there?”

  “Carla.”

  “No,” Royce said. “The papers said she was all but a vegetable. She couldn’t even describe the men who attacked her. Even you just said she couldn’t do anything but grunt.”

  “She’s my daughter. I can communicate with her in ways no one else can.”

  “Well Kreskin, why the hell didn’t you tell the police so they could arrest the assholes that attacked her? Why did you decide to punish my wife?”

  “Those men were managed,” Winston said. “Believe me, no one was forgiven.”

  And now Royce understood. Winston had threatened to take what he knew to the police. Monica had panicked, fearing what the publicity would do to her career. Others might find it a terribly small thing, but Monica knew the importance of her reputation. Her high profile clients would vanish overnight in the wake of something like this. The public humiliation would have been too much for her.

  “You fuck,” Royce said. “Monica’s dead because your daughter was in the wrong place at the wrong time. We didn’t do anything to her. In fact if anyone’s to blame, it’s you. You’re the one that should have kept her out of the park at night. You’re the one that should have been watching her.”

  You should have been watching him. He’s your brother.

  Royce’s head grew light again. He stumbled back from the chair as beads of sweat dripped into his eyes, coating his vision and stinging his corneas. The room tipped, then righted too quickly. He thought he might vomit and reached out to the wall to stable himself until the sensation passed.

  His thoughts roiled and melted, blurring like his vision. He smelled turkey and stuffing, cooking in the oven. On the floor, his little brother, Wes, was playing with his newly opened Christmas presents. Their parents had gotten the day’s fight out of the way early. Their father was down the street drinking beers with Merle and Lon and Dexter. Their mother was upstairs crying.

  Wes bounced a toy on his thigh and spoke in a high-pitched nasal tone, creating a voice for the bit of plastic pinched between his fingers.

  The giant’s coming to eat me, the toy cried.

  Royce hated the little shit. His nose was always bubbling with snot and his lips were constantly shimmering with fresh spit. Wes was a disgusting piece of crap, but he got whatever he wanted because he was the baby.

  Yes, I’m going to eeeat yoooou, Wes said trying to make his voice low and threatening, but it still sounded girly to Royce.

  You couldn’t eat that, he said, taunting his little brother.

  Could too.

  I’ll bet you can’t.

  Can so.

  I dare you.

  I don’t wanna.

  Because you know you can’t.

  Royce shook his head. The unwanted memory tore loose but it wouldn’t go away. He stood in Paul Winston’s dining room, but ghosts from another room hung about the place. Winston remained in the chair, eyeing Royce, and at the man’s feet, Royce’s little brother Wes rolled amid torn boxes and shredded holiday wrap. The child bucked on the floor, clutching his throat.

  “It’s only going to get worse,” Winston said.

  “What are you talking about?” Royce asked, looking at the man’s face so he wouldn’t have to see Wes’s desperate thrashing.

  “Your wife came to me at the restaurant that night,” Winston said. “She told me how much she liked the hostess I hired to replace Carla. Your wife told me she thought the new girl added a touch of class to the place, as if Carla wasn’t good enough to lead your pretentious asses to a table. She might as well have spit in my daughter’s face.”

  “She was complimenting the restaurant,” Royce said. He barely registered how ridiculous the defense sounded. He was still too disoriented by the bizarre double-vision he was experiencing.

  “You people,” Winston said in disgust, bobbing his head up and down like a rooster hunting a worm, “everything and everyone that fails to serve you or appeal to your precious aesthetic is distasteful. You wear entitlement like wings, thinking it raises you above anyone who doesn’t share your narrow ideals. You didn’t help my daughter because you couldn’t be bothered, because she wasn’t part of your accepted class, because there was no benefit to you.”

  On the floor, Wes slapped the carpet, crushing a swatch of blue Christmas wrap. Through his claw-curled fingers, Royce saw Santa’s face, grinning with good cheer.

  “Wes,” Royce whispered.

  “You want to know what I told your wife that night?” Winston asked. “It was one word. One simple word: Marlboro.”

  “Marlboro?” Royce said. Suddenly he could concentrate again. His brother’s body had stopped moving, making Wes less of a distraction. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

  “Ask your wife,” Winston said.

  “Fuck you,” Royce yelled, driving the barrel of the gun into Winston’s temple, shoving the old man’s head to the side. “What does it mean?”

  “I don’t know what the word means. I just knew it meant something to your wife. For as long as I can remember I’ve sensed the words. They come to me when I need them. Once spoken, they act like worms, burrowing through your thoughts until they find an emotional core. You may have heard the word a thousand times before, but I make it meaningful.”

  Royce smelled turkey and stuffing. On the floor, his little brother, Wes, was playing with his newly opened Christmas presents. Their father was down the street drinking beers with his friends. Their mother was upstairs crying.

  The ugly memory had rewound and started again.

  Royce tried to fight it. “No,” he said. He shook his head again and bit the inside of his cheek until he tasted blood.

  Marlboro, he thought. What could that have meant to his wife? It was a brand of cigarettes. Maybe it meant something else. Neither he nor Monica were the sort to associate with losers who smoked. In fact, they’d complete
ly cut Monica’s aunt Holly out of their lives because the redneck hag had clung to the filthy habit.

  No big loss, Royce thought. It just meant they wouldn’t be getting anymore of those hideous afghans the woman knitted and passed off as presents.

  So what had the word meant?

  And why wouldn’t his baby brat brother quit arguing with him?

  Could too.

  I’ll bet you can’t.

  Can so.

  A realization fell over him, and Royce tightened his grip on the pistol. For a moment the voices of children ceased.

  Oh Jesus, the old fuck did something to me. It’s just like Monica. In the end, she couldn’t think straight. She kept mumbling about blood on her hands and how they used to do “it” with knitting needles.

  Do what?

  I don’t wanna.

  “Shut up, Wes! Just do it or I’ll take it away, and you’ll never see it again.”

  His little brother popped the toy in his mouth. He tried to swallow, but the molded plastic lodged in his windpipe. Royce thought the brat was acting, making a great show of clutching his throat and hopping around the living room. Wes had looked totally stupid and was even more annoying than he had been playing with his toys. By the time Royce realized his brother was in real trouble, the kid was sprawled on the floor, his hands flapping and smacking the carpet like the wings of a wounded bird.

  Then the struggle ended.

  And Royce’s mother came downstairs, her jaw still tight from the argument she’d had with Royce’s father that morning. She found Wes on the floor and screamed.

  “Make it stop,” Royce told the man in the chair, as his mother demanded to know what had happened to her baby boy. “I swear to God, if you don’t stop this I’ll put a bullet through your head.”

  Paul Winston said nothing. He lowered his head and gazed over his chest and belly at the floor.

  “I’m not joking,” Royce said. “If you don’t make this stop, I’m going to shoot. Are you listening to me?”

  Are you listening to me, young man?

  But mom, I…

  You should have been watching him. He’s your little brother.

  “Winston!” Royce cried.

  He spun around, to get away from the angry face of his mother. He tried to escape the room but it felt as if the floor was melting beneath each stride, turning thick and cloying, sucking at his feet like mud. The gun hung in his hand like a brick of lead. He felt exhausted and nauseous. The air in the house was stifling.

  The odor of turkey and stuffing wrapped around his nose and mouth like a thick filthy rag. His father had punched his mother in the mouth and stormed out of the house. On the floor, his little brother, Wes, played with his newly opened Christmas present, a small plastic turtle that he bounced on his knee.

  The turtle spoke in panicked falsetto through his brother’s mouth. Don’t eat me. Don’t eat me.

  Royce dropped the gun. It fell to the floor amid discarded ribbons, brightly colored bows and wadded gift-wrap. He walked into a wall and dropped to his ass, stunned because there shouldn’t have been a wall in the middle of his parents’ living room.

  “Don’t eat me,” Wes squealed. Then his voice fell into a lower register, and he said “Yes, I’m going to eeeat yoooou.”

  “You shouldn’t eat that,” Royce said.

  “Can too.”

  “I know you can, Wes. Just don’t.”

  “Can so,” Wes replied. He lifted the plastic turtle to his lips and slipped it through.

  “Don’t, Wes,” Royce cried. “Please don’t.”

  But it was too late. His brother moved around the living room, hands clutching at his throat. His chest heaved in spasm, but air couldn’t reach his desperate lungs. Wes fell to the floor. His hands slapped.

  Through the clutched fingers, Royce saw a bit of wrapping paper. It was blue and it had a picture of Santa on it. Then Wes’s hand seized up and the bit of paper crumpled in his grasp.

  Landfall ’35

  So much had already been lost. The prosperity of the post-war years had been stacked too high, too thin, and it all came crashing down in what they were calling a great depression. I was comparatively fortunate. A veteran of the Great War, the government felt obliged to put me to work. While old friends stood in bread lines, holding their tattered clothing together with filthy fingers, I worked in a camp by the ocean on a sliver of land framed by sandy beach. For all of the hardship of the last half-decade, many of us on the highway project believed we had reached a place of security. It seemed the entire country had stepped over the edge of a cliff, but we had landed on a ledge of stone, relatively unharmed and ready to begin the steady climb upward. We still felt hope, and we called the camp home.

  The camp, one of three established by the Federal Emergency Relief Administration in 1933, sat on the southern edge of Lower Matecumbe Key, dead center between Key West and Miami. The men assigned to the camp came from diverse backgrounds, from pencil pushing accountants and bankrupted shop owners to construction workers and athletes, long past their glory days. Many of us were in our forties, but some white haired and world-weathered geezers traipsed the sand with us, taking the jobs that required no real exertion, like driving the supply trucks and serving meals on the grub line. We were there to build a road, part of the Overseas Highway Project. It was hard work, but it was work, and since employment had become rare and precious, we took our duties seriously and felt grateful for them.

  As a group, the war was the common thread between us, so we fell into informal military practices, saying, “Yes, sir,” and “No, sir,” to our superiors, and every morning we fell in for roll call. We marched to the worksite in units. Many of the men had come to the camp in rags, but they’d brought their old uniforms, clean and pressed and folded neatly in their bags. We called the camp manager “Captain,” as he’d carried the rank in Europe, and we came to attention when he entered a room. We needed order amidst the chaos of crumbling fortune and uncertain future, and many of us embraced the regimentation. Our shirts were tucked and our temporary homes were kept tidy, floors swept free of sand every night before lights out.

  Sixty shacks, laid in a precise grid like the blocks of a fastidious child, stood just above the sand on wood pilings and stone foundations. Along with considerably more permanent structures—the post office, the school, and the hotel—these cabins made up the camp. They were rickety but new, and they gave us a dry place to sleep and a bit of privacy. The cabins were no protection at all.

  The day before the storm I stood on a stretch of beach. A small boy—the child of a friend—danced with the waves, skipping back as the ocean licked at the sand. Then he dashed forward to chase the retreating surf while lines of white foam hissed and vanished as if boiled away. Three gulls, searching for supper in the shallows, drifted on the evening air currents farther down the shore. Behind them rose a dense stand of Mangrove trees and a wall of somber gray clouds.

  The boy’s name was Robby McMahon, eight years old with carrot red hair and skin the color of milk. A rash of freckles covered his nose and cheeks. His daddy, Chester, waited back at the camp for the chow bell.

  I avoided the camp food whenever I could, choosing to fish or snatch crab and shrimp from the tangles of Mangrove roots to choking down the rations slopped into our tin bowls. The food reminded me of war rations, all grit and paste and salt and gristle, and it seemed to expand into monstrous things once it hit my stomach. The nightmares were always worse after a camp supper. But I didn’t just fish for myself. My pal, Graham, had taken sick, and I knew the salty, sloppy grub Eric and Baxter spooned out would do him no favors. So I held a length of stick with a twine line and a bent piece of metal on which I’d skewered some flounder gut. The leaden waves were high and hard and drove my unburdened line back to me before the foul scrap of chum could entice a suitable meal to my hook. Behind me the chow bell rang, and I told Robby McMahon to head on back to his daddy so they didn’t miss their supper, and he asked
if I would be coming along right soon, and I told him I would. The sun should have been high still, and perhaps it was, but clouds, so thick and dark as to remind me of blood-soaked mud, obscured it. Lightning broke above the ocean, and the furious waves rejected my cast line repeatedly until the futility of my endeavor finally sank in.

  I wrapped the line around the stick and held it to my shoulder like a rifle and strolled southerly toward the stand of Mangroves down the beach. The air, rich with the scent of salt and fouled by the reek of landed seaweed, felt heavy about my shoulders and thick in my lungs. Voices came up on my right and I turned. A group of six men marched slowly from the south. Other than the constant chatter, their demeanor was military with backs straight, steps precise, moving in unison with eyes forward.

  The search party. Apparently, they’d found nothing.

  The day before we had received word that workers from the camps to the north—Camp 1 and Camp 5—had gone missing. Seven total so far.

  Though many of us had speculated that they’d simply skipped out on the hard, sweaty work, their captains felt certain that these were not the kind of men who shirked responsibility. Good men. Good workers. Fine veterans. Gone. No word from the ferry captains or train station agents in Key West or Homestead about them. So a search party had been formed in the morning and the crew had been instructed to sweep up and down the train tracks and the highway, looking for temporary encampments or other evidence of the men’s passing. I waved at the crew and two sergeants at the rear lifted their hands in response, their steps never faltering.

  Eventually the sand gave way to a slight rise, and I climbed into a field of beach grass as high as my knee and heavily browned from the long summer. The gentle whoosh of blades against my legs played to the crashing ocean waves and the call of the carrion birds. The field recalled memories of my boyhood home and my sister, Marjorie.