by Glover, Dan
She turned in Billy’s arms kissing him deeply while balancing her coffee cup in one hand.
“I really want to drag you to my bed… you feel so great.”
“I’d like that. Maybe it would help me get rid of this awful headache.”
“Oh… I’m sorry, Billy. Did you take anything for it? There are some aspirin tablets in the cabinet.”
“It doesn’t help. I’ve had them ever since I was a kid… nothing helps.”
“Lisa told me about how you spent some time in an asylum.”
The words were out of her mouth before she realized it… she didn't know how receptive Billy would be to talking about that time in his life. He had never brought it up to her, almost like he was ashamed of it and wanted to hide that part of him.
“Yes, I did. I tried to kill myself. God, Allison… I’m still fighting the urge even to this day. When you walked in, I stood here dreaming of doing it again. I hear voices telling me it will be easier this way…”
“What way?”
Allison seemed to be wondering if she should call someone… if she should be afraid for Billy… afraid of Billy. He could see it in her beautiful blue eyes and hear it in her voice that washed over him like the fragrance of the lilac trees blossoming outside the kitchen window.
“I don’t understand, Billy. Talk to me.”
“The voices I hear tell me I’m going to die in a terrible fashion unless I chose to die by my own hand. But if I do that, I can’t save this girl I’m supposed to save.”
“Billy… you’re not making sense. I’m worried about you.”
“No… listen for a minute. I know I sound crazy but Yelena told me the same thing. The weirdest thing happened the day we met… we shook hands and she collapsed. If I hadn’t caught her she’d have fallen right on the floor. Something strange is happening to me and I don’t know what it is.”
“Maybe I should call someone…”
Allison stood in front of him searching Billy’s face for a clue of an answer.
“I’m scared for you, Billy.”
"I have you and Lisa looking out for me. Nothing is going to happen so don’t be scared, my love."
He stepped back from her, picked up a cup, and filled it with coffee. He couldn’t keep his eyes off Allison. She glowed this morning, and though she'd always been gorgeous she seemed especially so even sans makeup and freshly out of bed.
"I have something to tell you. I'm not sure now is the time but somehow it feels right. Billy, I'm pregnant."
"Wait—for a minute I thought you said you're pregnant. Am I hearing things again?"
"I'm pregnant, Billy. I'm having our baby."
She walked into his arms holding him so close that he could feel her tremble with want.
"I'm going to be a father?"
"Are you upset?"
"God, no, that's the most amazing news I've ever gotten in my life! Does Lisa know?"
"I think she suspects. She saw the pregnancy tests in the bathroom and gave me a look. She was on her way to work though so we didn’t have time to talk. I'm going in to work early to tell her. Come with me, okay? Jem knows—she told me it will be a girl. She already has a name picked out."
"She does?"
"She said we will name the baby Lisa Pearl. Isn't that a pretty name?"
"Pearl was my sister. She passed away when she was just a child. I wonder if Lisa told Jem that story."
"That's sad, Billy. I'm sorry. I didn’t know. If you don’t want to use that name, we can think of something else. Besides, I don’t know if it’s a boy or a girl yet. It's too early to tell."
"Well, I think it’s a beautiful name, Allison. You know she told me and Lisa that she's going to have a brother. His name will be Billy Johns Austin."
"Jem has quite the imagination, I guess."
"Either that or she's got a bit of Yelena's second sight."
"Want to celebrate?"
"You read my mind, Billy Austin. Race you to bed."
Chapter 44—Bumps in the Night
"So, Billy, I hear that congratulations are in order."
Tom Three Deer stopped into Twenty Nine Katz for a drink but more to see his friend. Billy and Lisa had come to the ranch several times to go riding. On their latest outing Allison Johns accompanied them. Tom could see both Billy and Lisa making eyes at the pretty blonde girl.
"Thanks, Tom. We're very excited about it. Lisa and Allison went shopping for maternity clothes today and a new bed. They said once their bellies really start growing we'll need more room. I've seen pregnant women before, and maybe it's just because I love them both so much, but I've never seen anyone as beautiful as those two."
"I'm sorry, Billy, but I just have to ask. Isn't Lisa angry about Allison being pregnant with your baby too? I assume it's yours. I can't even imagine what Michelle would do if I told her something like that."
Billy tended bar at Twenty Nine Katz in the evenings ever since Roger promoted him to night manager. Tom was happy to see his old friend had finally found someone he could rely upon to run the tavern in his absence. Roger had been putting in eighteen hour days for thirty years.
"I trust you, Tom. I know what I say won't go any farther."
Billy leaned over the bar as if to whisper to him so no one else could hear what was being said. The usual crowd of regulars was there. Tom saw several men giving him the stink eye... men who he'd had words with in the past about how they treated Billy. He knew none of them had the nerve to approach him, however.
His eyes automatically scanned the room for strangers. Finding none he settled down and listened to Billy Austin's news.
"Lisa and Allison are in love with each other, and with me too. Yes, the baby is mine. I couldn’t believe it when Allison told me. I still can't. And then Lisa found out she's expecting too."
"Are they both going to keep working?"
"They gave Roger their notices yesterday. They're going to stay until he can find replacements. I guess the only reason Allison ever worked was to be with Lisa and me. She comes from a rich family. When her father passed away he left a trust fund worth millions. She talked Lisa into staying home with her. She's even trying to get me to quit working too."
"Speaking of Allison's family, Yelena said something to me about a brother. I stop by to see her every once in a while. We share a few drinks and a few laughs. This last time she seemed upset. She said she's not been sleeping for the dreams she's having."
"Allison has a brother who escaped from an asylum for the criminally insane. He murdered a woman out east. He didn’t just murder her, he tortured her. Apparently that woman looked a lot like Allison. She has it in her mind that he's coming back for her. I tell you Tom, Yelena isn't helping to quell those feelings with her silly stories about a demented clown."
"What if she's right? Are you ready to defend your family from a man like that?"
"You think I'm a cunt because I let those men hassle me."
"Absolutely not, Billy, you're my friend and I'm worried about you. That's all."
"I hear voices that aren't there."
"I'm not sure what you mean."
"I spent time in an asylum too. Before I came here I spent years locked up for one reason or another. I heard voices telling me to kill myself. Hell, Tom, I still hear them. I call it the wolf. The last time I was locked up they tried aggressive therapy. They gave me ECT treatments, which basically erased all the memories of my adult life. When I came here I was nothing more than a ten year old child in a man's body."
"Jesus Christ, Billy, I had no idea."
"That's why I let those assholes pick on me. I didn’t know how to deal with them as an adult. I kept hearing voices telling me that I didn’t have to take it, that I could follow them home and bash their heads in with a baseball bat. I kept fighting it, but to tell the truth, I was about ready to do just that until you stepped in."
"Yelena said that I had to look out for you. The weird thing is, she told me about that thirty years
ago."
"How could that be, Tom? I just turned thirty."
"That's what I'm trying to tell you. Yelena sees things. She knows things. If she says something bad is going to happen, believe it."
"She scares me. She always has."
"Well, she frightens me too, Billy and I'm not scared of anything. But Yelena turns that eye of hers on me and I about crap myself."
"She came home with Allison the other night. They were very drunk. Yelena kept going on about how she's been dreaming of evil clowns. She got us all spooked. I heard something outside, like someone walking on the porch. When I went to investigate I swear I saw something out there, but only out of the corners of my eyes. Whenever I looked right at it, there was nothing there."
"Maybe nothing you could see, Billy It could well be someone is stalking your place, biding their time, waiting for the perfect moment."
"Come on, Tom. Now you're starting to give me the willies."
"Regardless, keep a close eye on those pretty women. Be ready to defend them. And don't be afraid to ask for help. There are a lot of people who care about you. Now, how about you give me another drink and you all stop out to the ranch this weekend; we could go riding."
"We'd love to, Tom. Thank you, for everything."
Tom downed his drink in a gulp, waved goodbye to his friend, and headed for the door. Outside the wind had gotten up; shadows sambaed across the dunes confusing his already frayed sense of reality and illusion; he couldn’t decide whether the murmuring voices were within his head or within his ears. Walking to his car, Tom jumped inside locking the doors right away before driving home, forever checking his rearview mirror to see if someone followed.
That night Tom dreamed of clowns dissecting dolls only the dolls were alive and wriggling as they were slowly carved up and served steaming hot upon a platter with elegant glasses of cognac and silver forks protruding from their skulls.
Chapter 45—Home
"There's someone in the house, daddy."
It was late. Billy had just come in from work surprised to find Jem still up. She lay on the sofa with the television flickering but turned down low. Allison had been attempting to get him to quit working too but Billy hated the thought of letting Roger down.
It was strange to see Jem up watching television. Normally she was in bed early and if she got up at all it was to come to sleep with them, usually in the middle of the night, perhaps spooked by the noises the old house made or a bad dream, like tonight.
"Who do you mean, sweetie? Your mommy and your mom are here, right?"
"There's someone in the house, daddy."
Going to her side to sit by her Billy realized Jem was still fast asleep. She was obviously dreaming. Picking her up Billy carried her to her room on the third floor, puffing a bit by the time they got there. She was getting big. As he laid her gently down on the bed her eyelids fluttered open.
"Hi daddy! I was waiting for you to get home!"
"Hello, Jem. Why were you waiting for me, sweetie?"
"A clown is going to be hiding in the house, daddy."
"Did you have a bad dream, Jem?"
"Am I awake?"
She made two fists and rubbed her eyes.
"I thought we might be still dreaming."
"Yes, you're awake, sweetie."
"Yelena was there with me."
"She was in your dream?"
"She said not to be scared, that you'll take care of us."
"She's right, Jem. I'll always be here to take care of you."
"She told me that one day you'll have to go away."
"Well, that would break my heart."
"She said that even if I can't see you, you'll be here. She said we were together a long time ago, all of us: you and me, mommy and mom, Mr. Roger, and Mr. Tom, all of us. She said that we'll keep back coming together, forever and forever. She called it a gathering of lovers."
"That doesn’t sound like a scary dream."
"The part I didn’t like was when she told me about the clowns."
"Did she tell you that in her dream?"
"Yes. She said the clowns want the babies."
"What babies?"
"You know what babies, you silly daddy. They want the ones growing in mommy's and in mom's bellies."
"Why do the clowns want the babies, Jem?"
But the little girl had fallen fast asleep. For just second, Billy was tempted to shake her awake but she looked so peaceful and beautiful that he didn't dare. He would find out soon enough, he reckoned.
Going to the second floor bedroom he shared with Lisa and Allison he looked in to see his lovers entwined in each others arms. Satisfied they were safe, Billy went back downstairs to check all the doors and windows were locked.
Stepping out onto the back porch he lighted a cigarette while gazing out over the twisted and tangled orchard black and gray in the moonlight flooding down from the sky with stars and planets poking bright holes in the darkness above. The susurrus of the tides sweeping in calmed his jangled nerves.
He liked the orchard at night. The gleam of the bark on the twisted gnarled branches of the pear trees in the moonlight and sweet odor of the apple trees and the sea breeze combined to send Billy hurtling backward in time to when he was a boy and they lived in one of the ghettos dotting the innards of Oklahoma City and the neighbor had fruit trees in his back yard and a wolf.
Billy liked the wolf best. He wanted to free it from the cage where it hadn’t the room to even pace back and forth. He was just a kid, though. Even though he'd been unable to fulfill his dream of setting the wolf loose, just by being close to the animal when he fed it table scraps he was lent strength that he was sorely lacking.
Before the wolf, Billy had been scared of everything. Now, however, there was nothing that fazed him. He would stare death itself in the eyes and wait for it to blink knowing he was stronger.
"You better be a couple of bad-ass clowns if you think you're getting my babies, or my wives."
"What did you say, Billy?"
"Oh, hi Lisa, I didn’t hear you come out. I just looked in on you and Allison. I thought you were sleeping."
"I was but I smelled the smoke from your cigarette and I want one."
She walked into Billy's arms pushing her body into his. She smelled of Allison and of love. Her baby bump was barely visible in the silver light of the moon. He thought how her face would have moved kings to war.
"I'm really trying to quit but I'll fuck you half to death for just a drag off yours."
"How can a fellow turn down an offer like that?"
He held out his cigarette as she took it between her eager lips. He watched her moonlit bright eyes glow as she took a long drag and wondered at the marvel of the world and the women who loved him.
"Come on, Billy, let's go upstairs. We'll wake Allison and make a night of it."
"Have I ever told you how much I love you, Lisa?"
"Oh, once or twice, but I'm open to hearing it again."
Chapter 46—Encounters
"That fucking bitch is pregnant."
He used the anger in an attempt to undermine the guilt that had been growing inside his stomach over what he planned on doing to Allison and her friend. Watching them interact had aroused something long dormant inside of him... something he feared to name. By feeding his rage on the vestiges of his old feelings for Allison he managed to obviate the more potent feelings of empathy that threatened to surface and annihilate the hatred blazing in his belly.
"Who are you talking about, my boy?"
"My sister, Allison... she's pregnant, old man."
"That's great news for us, Oscuro. Why are you so upset?"
"I wanted to be the father."
"And you will be, believe me. You'll have plenty of chances."
"She's living on the California coast with a couple. The man looks familiar but I can't quite place where I know him from. The other woman is pregnant too. I want them both, Kirk. We'll have ourselves a feast."
>
"Is it safe, Oscuro? There is no sense taking chances now, my boy. We're already set pretty well."
The old man irritated him at times with his cautious ways and carefully cultivated gentile manners, as if he was some sort of European aristocrat. He spoke in a sort of patois... an odd combination of French, English, and Spanish with just enough of an accent that Oscuro wasn’t sure was real or simulated. Kirk rarely spoke about his former life... whether it was out of shame or simply an abundance of vigilance... of being aware of who and what he was.
He had thought Kirk was lying about the regenerative qualities of the little morsels they imbibed. He brought home the first one as sort of a test... to shock the old man into reality, perhaps, or to find out if he was actually telling the truth. The look erupting across Kirk's face when he saw what Oscuro had obtained was one of extreme hunger and at that moment Oscuro knew.
He thought how grand it would be to combine his two great loves... a life of debauchery and Allison. Oscuro wanted to live a thousand years... ten thousand, if he lent Kirk the credence he sometimes failed to muster for the old man. He briefly contemplated the savage persistence such a life must require... the ability to set aside all traditional social conventions and live on the edge of sanity.
Kirk was undoubtedly the most isolated individual that he had ever met. Even the residents in Didi Hearsh had more of a social life than the old man. So far as he could see, Kirk never visited anyone nor did he have any friends or family. Once his stint at the carnival funhouse was finished he retreated to his motor home. Lavish as it was, Oscuro couldn’t see himself practicing the same sort of lifestyle.
Oscuro found Allison easy enough. A clandestine visit to their former home in Malibu had resulted in the discovery of the girl's address on a post card she had sent their mother. If she was hiding from him, she was doing it in plain sight.
The old Victorian gave him the chills. There was something about the decrepit old mansion that Oscuro hated. He decided to burn it down once he had the women safely tucked away... he wanted to watch the flames shooting high into the sky as he listened to the whimpers.
