Psychos

by Neil Gaiman

  “Why, Ralphie?” I wheeze. “You’re supposed to be my friend.”

  Ralphie’s panting, bending over with his hands on his knees. “Get outta here,” he says, and I try to stand up, but I stumble and then his hands are under my armpits. His arms are hard in the middle, but all around he’s soft, like he’s almost thawed. He puts me in the seat of his golf cart, then he gets in the other side and turns it on.

  I don’t know what to say and he doesn’t look at me, but we’re side to side, like we’re falling asleep together on a couch. I’m breathing in gasps, like a gold fish on the carpet. I don’t want to be alone. I think, how many friends do I have anyway? He’s Ralphie. I put my arm around his shoulder. I clap him around the shoulder, like they do on TV, and he looks at me, then looks away again, like he’s going to cry. There’s blood on my beard. “Get the fuck out,” he says, when he takes me to the side walk. “This is private property and if you come back again, I’ll fucking kill you.”

  I hate it when Ralphie talks to me that way, but he’s my best friend, and I nod. There’s a gas station on this side of the mall, and it has one pay phone, under the flickering light, inside a little red shell, like someone tore open a beetle and its guts were made of plastic and wire.

  I have some quarters. I have the number. I paid a guy in meth to get the number for me. I pay the machine and I dial with my fingers that still bend. This is my ID, even if nobody else knows it.

  Two rings, then it picks up. “This is Mary-Beth?” It’s a question. I start crying. When she speaks again, she sounds afraid. “Who is this? Who the fuck is this?” “It’s Jerry, Mom.”

  It’s long and quiet and dark on the other end of the phone. I want to scream for her. I want her to hug me. I want her to be my ID. I want her to worry when she can’t find me. I want the cookie jars to be whole.

  “After what you did...” It’s a whisper. Like she’s afraid and she can’t ever believe the world would be such a horrible place.

  “Please, Mom…” “Don’t you ever call me again, you sick little fuck.”

  And then the phone is dead in my hand. I try. I put every quarter I can in the machine. And nickels and pennies. It rings and rings, but there’s no person there on the other end and pennies fall out from the slot onto the street. Not even Ralphie picks up.

  I let the phone hang down and I sit beneath it and I bury my head in my arms and I want to cry. The night air feels hot and wet, like the whole world is weeping. It still hurts when I breathe. Everything, everything is fucked up and I can’t kill whales and I don’t have any ID at all in the whole world.

  Someone nudges me with a toe and I jump. It’s a little girl, maybe sixteen, in a skirt so short you can see where her legs stop being legs. She’s so skinny, like all the pictures on the walls. A dead cigarette hangs from her lips.

  “You got a light?” she says.

  I shake my head. No. No, I don’t have any lights. She looks closer. “Jesus, man, are you okay? You look like you got the shit kicked out of you.” She’s so small. But she looks like she really cares. Like she’s being nice to me just to be nice. I wish I had a light for her. The cup is in one pocket. The knife is in the other.

  “Do…do you have any ID?” I ask.

  She snorts and wiggles the unlit cigarette between her thin, soft fingers. “Why the fuck would I be carrying ID?”

  And I think, how sad.

  There’s no one who’s going to miss her.

  And What Did You See in the World?

  BY NORMAN PARTRIDGE

  Love is hard enough for the sane. Almost by definition, it makes you crazy. Once you say, “I’d do anything for you,” you’ve left the door wide open. Anything is an awfully large word.

  As a writer, Norman Partridge is one of the only guys I’d put in a street-fighting class with Joe R. Lansdale. It’s a very particular kind of plainspoken, down-to-earth-meets-batshit crazy, if you know what I mean. And I’ll bet you do.

  If not, you’re about to find out. And you’re entirely responsible for picking your own teeth out of the gravel.

  He drove out of Dallas with Jenny in the trunk.

  An old beater of a Ford was what he was driving. Someone had popped the lock out of the trunk. God knows why—the only thing he ever had worth stealing back there was Jenny, and he never left her in the trunk unless he was absolutely sure it was safe.

  This trip he’d wired the trunk shut with a twisted up coat hanger. It would take some work to get in there if anyone wanted to try, but he had the feeling no one would. The lid was wired pretty tight. It didn’t rattle much, except when he hit a bump. But that wasn’t because of the coat hanger or the missing lock. The lid rattled because the rubber gaskets around the casing had rotted away.

  He worried about that. If he hit rain on the trip, water might get in around the edges. Jenny wouldn’t get wet, of course. No way. He kept her wrapped up in plastic so the weather wouldn’t bother her.

  Of course, the weather wasn’t his only concern. He wondered how dark it was in the trunk. He wondered if Jenny could see anything in there. He’d jammed a rag in the hole where the lock should be so it would stay as dark as possible in the trunk, but there was nothing he could do about light that might creep in around the rotted gaskets.

  He didn’t want Jenny to have to see anything but darkness. Anything but darkness wouldn’t be good. He hoped that was all Jenny saw. He hoped she wasn’t looking at the other stuff jammed in there with her—his clothes, a box of kitchen stuff, the bald spare tire he couldn’t afford to replace.

  He didn’t want her to see that stuff. Jenny wasn’t stupid. She saw that stuff, she’d know what it meant.

  Darkness was better.

  Darkness could mean almost anything.

  He headed north. It seemed like a good direction. He remembered the road. It was the same one he’d traveled about six months ago when he’d come to Texas, only then he’d been heading south.

  Dallas had been a mistake. He’d known that right from the start, really. He’d heard there was work in Dallas, that the city was growing, that it was a really nice place to get a fresh start, but it turned out to be the same old stuff he’d heard about a dozen other places. Just a come-on to get you there, and once you were there…well, once you were there you saw how things were, you saw the dirty streets and you saw the things that happened on them, and pretty soon you found yourself listening to what people were saying about other places.

  One look at Dallas and he’d known that it wasn’t the place for Jenny. First thing he saw was the horizon at sunset, a ring of smog and domino skyscrapers choking downtown, and he knew PDQ that he’d made a mistake. He didn’t even want Jenny to see Dallas at all, because he knew what one look would do to her.

  She wanted to see it, of course. She wanted to see every city where they tried to settle, but he knew better than to let her. Deep down Jenny knew it, too, though it always took some convincing.

  Not that she didn’t understand once he explained it. Then things were all right. Jenny was a good sport. She had to stay in the trunk for two days when they first hit Dallas. It was hot—the middle of June—but Jenny didn’t complain, even though the Ford didn’t have air-conditioning.

  Finally he found an apartment that he could afford. Well, that wasn’t true. He could afford the first month’s rent okay, but the last month’s rent and the cleaning deposit tapped him out.

  That was okay. At least it was a nice apartment. It was quiet, and there was new linoleum in the kitchen and the bathroom, and the walls wore a fresh coat of paint.

  There was a walk-in closet in the single bedroom. It wore a new coat of paint too. First thing he did was step inside the closet and close the door. The floor of the closet was carpeted. Shag. The carpet was probably old, but it didn’t smell or anything. And it piled against the bottom edge of the door when you closed it so that no light spilled under the doorway at all.

  He remembered standing there in that closet, in the dark.
r />   His eyes were wide open as he stood there.

  He smiled. It was the perfect place for Jenny.

  In the darkened closet it was easy to imagine that you were somewhere else. Somewhere nice.

  Somewhere nice. He hoped that was where they were heading this time.

  He glanced in the rearview, saw Dallas behind him. That felt good. He put on some music. The kind of stuff Jenny liked. He turned it up loud enough so that she could hear it, even through the backseat.

  After awhile he got tired of the interstate. He wasn’t interested in anyplace it might take him. He exited the next chance he got and headed northwest on a two-lane county road. That made him feel a little better. He worried about the interstate. People drove like idiots. And if he got in an accident with Jenny in the trunk…well, that could be disastrous. She didn’t have a seat belt back there, and the old Ford sure as hell didn’t have airbags in the passenger compartment, let alone the trunk.

  That was a stupid thing to think. He shook his head. Sometimes the things he worried about amazed him. Hell, even if he were rich enough to afford any car he wanted, he wasn’t likely to find one with airbags in the trunk.

  The road was twisty, paralleling a riverbank lined with cottonwood. He could see the sun beyond the trees, but the Ford was trapped in the shadows they cast. He got kind of cold, but he didn’t turn on the heater. It didn’t seem fair. Jenny would be colder in the trunk, and you didn’t hear her complaining.

  Pretty soon he got hungry. The towns they passed through were small. They didn’t have fast food out here. He passed a couple walk-in diners, but he didn’t want to take the time for a sit-down meal. Besides, it wouldn’t be fair to leave Jenny in the trunk while he sat in some nice warm diner and enjoyed himself. Finally he spotted an old burger stand. It didn’t look like much, but now he was so hungry that he didn’t care.

  He pulled off the road and parked, killing the music. A jostling sound came from the trunk—the rustle of plastic, a couple pots and pans banging together as Jenny bumped the box that held the kitchen stuff. He thought that maybe she’d been sleeping. He hoped she had.

  When it came to talking, riding in the car was tricky. He didn’t look behind him when he spoke to Jenny. He’d learned not to do that, just in case anyone was watching. It looked funny enough to be talking to yourself, let alone an empty backseat.

  “I’m going to get something to eat,” he said. “Want anything?” “I’m not hungry.”

  “All right. You sit tight. It’s just a takeout place. Won’t take me long.” “Okay.” “You want the music on while I’m gone?” “No. I’m kind of tired of music.”

  He slipped the keys out of the ignition. “Okay. I’ll just be a minute. You sit tight.”

  He opened the door. He was almost out of the car when she asked, “What kind of place is it?”

  He looked at the burger stand. There were pictures showing burgers and fries and ice-cream sundaes behind the glass windows, but every picture was faded. The burgers and fries and sundaes were all kind of gray.

  He didn’t want to tell Jenny that, though. She didn’t need to know. “Are you still there?” she asked. “Yes.” He covered his mouth when he said it. The kid behind the takeout window was watching him, probably already thought that he was crazy.

  “So…what kind of place is it?” she asked again. “Nothing special.” “Can I take a look?” “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  He got out and closed the door before Jenny could say anything else. The kid looked at him funny when he ordered, watched him the whole time he ate, too. He tried to ignore the kid, but it was hard. The place was awful, really. Besides the kid, there wasn’t really anything else to look at if you didn’t look at the gray pictures in the window. The only other things around were a half-dozen metal tables scarred with graffiti and a couple garbage cans. All the other tables were empty, and the only things interested in the garbage cans were flies.

  After a few minutes, he couldn’t stand sitting there. He finished his burger and dumped most of his fries in the garbage. Before he could turn away the flies were all over them. He was still thirsty, but he left his drink on the table. He knew that he’d have to stop somewhere to use the bathroom if he finished it, and he didn’t want to have to stop anywhere else at all. Not after this place. Not unless he absolutely had to.

  He climbed behind the wheel as fast as he could. Before he could even start the engine, the kid was out of the stand. He walked over and tossed the discarded drink in the garbage can. Then he stared at the old Ford while he wiped down the table.

  Inside the Ford, the man’s keys rattled in his hands as he dug them out of his pocket. Somehow, he managed to slip the right one into the ignition.

  He heard Jenny’s voice behind him. Muffled by tattered seat cushions, but he heard her plain enough. She asked the same question she’d asked a million times, the one she always asked when he’d been away from her.

  “And what did you see in the world?”

  He stared through the windshield, at the kid, who was still watching him.

  He thought about Jenny’s question, and the best way to answer it.

  He pulled onto the two-lane county road.

  When he was a couple miles away from the burger stand, he gave Jenny an answer.

  He lied.

  Jenny had always asked questions, of course. Living the way she did, he could understand why it would be hard not to. But he also understood that he had to be careful when he answered those questions. He knew that his answers could hurt Jenny, the same way the world could hurt her if she so much as looked at it.

  So he had to be careful. Sometimes he had to lie. He supposed everyone did that, one way or another. Like when someone asks you, “How was your day?” Someone asks that, they don’t necessarily want to know, especially if your day has been for shit. They’re asking for another reason, really.

  Just to be polite, maybe.

  Or maybe they’re asking because they care about you.

  That’s the way it was with Jenny. She cared about him. She loved him. They’d been together a long time. They’d known right from the start that they were different, though. Not two peas in a pod, this couple. Jenny was always sensitive. The simplest thing could set her off. He’d seen it happen a hundred times. A stray dog banging around their garbage cans, some kid shivering in the cold without a coat, even the smell of a hospital corridor—stuff like that could make her melancholy for days. And sure, he wasn’t the easiest guy in the world to live with. He had his good days and his bad days. Sometimes they argued. When they were first together, before Jenny started staying in the closet or the trunk of his car, they argued a lot. Sometimes she’d say he was insensitive. He’d toss a rock at a dog eating out of their garbage can, or he’d bypass some coatless kid without a second glance, or he’d take a deep breath in a hospital corridor—and she’d say that he didn’t care about anything or anyone at all.

  She was wrong, of course. He cared about her. He’d do anything for her. He loved her. Even on his bad days, he loved her more than anything.

  Not that they were all bad days. Not at first. At first there were lots of good days. Jenny loved those. She was sensitive about bad things, things he never noticed, but she delighted in good things, and sometimes he was surprised he hadn’t noticed those things either. Simple things most people took for granted—like a sunset, or the sound of her own laughter.

  After awhile, that sound didn’t seem to come very often. Everything got to be too much for Jenny. Sometimes she cried for days and days and days. She’d shut herself up in the bedroom, draw the drapes, close all the windows to keep out the sounds and smells of the street.

  One day he went looking for a shirt and found her huddled in the closet. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t know what to say. He just stared down at her. And she looked up at him, and she started crying.

  He didn’t know what to say, so he closed the closet door.

  Jenny just sa
t there in the closet, sobbing, all alone in the dark.

  After awhile, she stopped crying.

  That was the way it started.

  But it wasn’t always easy, keeping her in the dark. He couldn’t remember exactly how long things had been that way, but he knew it had been a long time. Sometimes she got bored. Especially when they were in Dallas. Especially in that closet with the shag carpeting.

  When he came home from work, she asked about things. Almost every night. “And what did you see in the world?” Sometimes he’d tell her. But mostly there was nothing much to tell.

  Sometimes she’d talk about coming out. Just to walk around the apartment, or maybe to go to a park for an hour or two. He always managed to talk her out of it. He remembered what had happened before, and he didn’t want to go through that again. This way was easier for the both of them.

  But he could understand how she’d get bored in there. Sometimes he’d get her a little treat, like a library book. Just something to break the monotony. He had to be careful about what kind of book he got, of course. Almost anything with a story was sure to have something bothersome in it, and nonfiction was out of the question. Mostly, he stuck to paintings. Seascapes, flowers, that kind of stuff. He tried to find books that were new, because some of the older books upset Jenny. They had pages torn out, or nasty things written in the margins. Some of them even smelled bad, like a hospital or something.

  He only opened the closet door a crack when he gave her the books, because he didn’t want Jenny to see the apartment. And he only gave her the books at night, when it was dark, because he didn’t want her to see him, either. She saw how he looked, she was sure to worry.