October

by Al Sarrantonio

  "You were going to New York?" the clown asked.

  James nodded. "Grew up there."

  "Ah." The clown sucked on his beer.

  "I wanted to ask you, "James said, "if there was a place I could sleep tonight."

  "Sure," the clown said. He smiled, an odd thing, the top of his face covered in white makeup, wide, exaggerated eyes, bright white, the bottom containing his all-too-normal grin. He drained his beer, stood, brought two more cold ones out of the cooler. He tossed one to James, the same smooth underhand motion. "One more beer and I'll set you up."

  Forty minutes later, the beer slowing his mind, lulling his already tired body, James Weston followed Billy Peters to his camp wagon. They passed a couple of roustabouts in the darkness, laughing, passing a wine bottle, talking about sleeping late the next morning before breaking down.

  There wasn't enough room inside the wagon for two. It was covered in litter, old girlie magazines, empty Styrofoam coffee cups, beer cans, clothing, makeup supplies. It smelled musty.

  The blanket Peters handed him was stained, flakes of paper adhering to it. Peters made no apology, removed his costume, lay on his lumpy bed in his skivvies, turned his head to the wall.

  James went outside. He shook the blanket out, lay on the ground, covered himself. He heard vague sounds, far of a hoot of laughter. There was a cross of stars directly overhead. Cygnus, the Swan. The Northern Cross. He closed his eyes.

  And instantly opened them. The clown, Billy Peters, was on top of him, his mouth opened so wide it looked as if it had been repainted. The clown made little gurgling sounds deep in the back of his throat.

  James tried to throw the clown off. He was pinned at shoulders and arms. Peters put large hands on James's face, palms flat, conforming to the contours of James's cheeks. With his thumbs, he pressed down under James's chin, above the Adam's apple, cutting off air.

  James thrashed, thought of the nearby roustabouts, tried to shout. He could make no sound, could barely breathe. Billy Peters' face lowered. James's vision was beginning to swim. The clown's fingers, pressed hard on his face, were forcing his mouth open, pulling the teeth apart, holding them open like clamps.

  The sounds in the back of the clown's throat, a rasping grate, became louder. James had the feeling that the clown was about to put his mouth over James' and kiss him. The clown's eyes were unnaturally large, bloodshot, his breath oddly cold.

  James began to black out. The rasping sound became huge in his ears, with a rush of blood, and as the clown lowered his mouth, James saw in his failing sight something small and grayish appear on the clown's tongue—a movement of antennae or legs, which fell. He felt it scrape the back of his own throat. Immediately, he felt a freezing cold.

  With a gargantuan effort, convulsing with lack of oxygen, choking, he threw Billy Peters aside. James held his hands to his neck, pulling oxygen in, and at the same time, trying to expel the thing in his throat. He felt it digging, finding purchase. Then there was an excruciating pain, as if a huge dentist's needle had been driven up into the back of his throat, filling it with numbing, icy novocaine.

  He tried to scream. An airy, nearly inaudible hiss came out. He threw himself on the ground, clawing at the dirt. His mind was blind with pain. He saw fire in front of his eyes, felt as if his entire head was burning in acid. None of the thing's movements in the back of his throat were lost to him: he felt each tiny, boring cut, each movement of tiny legs, as it angled up

  Then, in a flash of blindness that left him gasping, the pain was gone.

  The sudden release from cold fire was like an orgasm. James fell back on the ground, gulping for air. His sight cleared, and as he blinked the tears of pain out of his eyes, he saw that the Northern Cross had wheeled toward the west, its trailing stars hidden by the cutting corner of the top of the camper.

  As his breathing evened, he heard Billy Peters gasping.

  James sat up. The clown was convulsing mightily. He had crawled to the front of the camper, and his hands clutched the front tire. His body was racked with shooting spasms. James stood, approached him.

  The clown's body gave off a hissing sound, like air escaping a punctured balloon.

  James pressed the toe of his boot into the clown's shoulder and turned him on his back. Billy Peters' hands let go of the tire. He fell back, twitching. His head, a grotesque mask, half man, half clown, hit repeatedly on the dirt.

  Hsssssssssss, the body said.

  Billy Peters's mouth tried to speak; he tried to raise his hand.

  Hsssssssssss.

  The eyes dropped away. The face collapsed like a sand castle dried in the sun. The body crumbled within its clothes.

  The skull fell back against the ground, then turned, in one hissing moment, to a pile of dust.

  James lifted the clothes. Dust spilled out of them. There was a sound like sand running through fingers. A plume of fine particles drifted away.

  From the far side of the carnival site, James heard a roustabout's curt laughter.

  Beyond, he heard the hissing of corn, like the sound of the disappearing man.

  James shook the clothes out, threw them in the trailer, closed the door, walked away.

  He walked, until the dim night-lights of the carnival were a mile behind. The looming rectangle of the trailer truck he had left grew off the highway. When he reached the cab of the truck, he stopped walking.

  He lay down off the road next to the truck and slept.

  He dreamed he wore a clown face, and was climbing into the open window of a farmhouse with a Winchester rifle. He emptied the house of life, lastly a boy in a room covered with baseball pennants and trophies, the blue barrel of the rifle in the boy's mouth, below his ruined head, carefully wrapping the dead hands around it before they stiffened. Then he dreamed that he was a man who repaired telephones, and a woman who sold cosmetics door-to-door, and a man who lived alone in the mountains but who sometimes came down into town, to visit a lone woman who would then die, or meet someone on a lone road with snow falling, who was later found tripped into a bear trap, head nearly severed. He was another man and then another, and a woman and a little girl and another man who liked to collect stamps and worked at a nursing home where many old people died.

  And, finally, he was a little boy who lived in a town where apples grew.

  Yes, he said in his dream, and he didn't know if the words had come from his own mouth.

  He slept, dreamless.

  In the morning, the dreams were forgotten. The truck driver, stubbled but rested, once again poked him awake, saying it was time to go.

  And when James got up and stretched, he realized that he wanted to go on with his quest after all, that this was surely the time to finish what he had started, to go back East. Marcie and his work, and Samuels, would just have to wait.

  He felt rejuvenated. They were on the road immediately, passing a roadside carnival breaking down that looked vaguely familiar to James. But his eyes looked away from it, to the highway.

  He bought the truck driver breakfast in Cedar Rapids. They talked, and laughed, and James found himself watching the truck driver leave with regret, going into the lonely confines of the back of his truck to check that his load was tied down, as James clutched his knife a little too hard over his eggs, and had to pry it curiously from his fingers with his other hand.

  No, he said to himself and found that curious, and disconcerting because he didn't feel as if he had really said it.

  But he felt much better when he walked out into the sunny morning and breathed the air, and found a shaggy red setter in the parking lot, an abandoned dog with nowhere to go who checked him over once and then held back.

  Go ahead, that disconcerting voice in the back of his head said to him. Take him with you. I don't need you yet.

  "Here, boy," he said, smiling at the dog, and the setter soon came to him and stayed.

  "Good boy. I'll call you Rusty. Want to go to New York?"

  The dog barked once.

/>   "Good."

  James put his thumb out, pointing east . . .

  "James?"

  Once again, someone poked him. His mind's movie fast-forwarded, past the dream, to the present. Up at the top of his throat, something stirred, stretched, threw tendrils out. He could feel it taking hold of the projector, loading a new spool of film into it, not his own.

  Now I need you.

  James opened his eyes.

  Ben Meyer was there, smiling down at him. James heard huffing, saw Rusty and Rags regarding him.

  James stretched his arms up high over his head. He smiled. "Lord, how long did I sleep?"

  "Sun's going down," Ben said. "Past suppertime. If you slept any longer, I would have had to throw a blanket over you, leave you to the cold."

  James stood up, felt his cracking bones align, make him tall.

  His foot, he discovered, was asleep; he stumbled forward, almost lost his balance. Ben Meyer grabbed his arm, steadied him.

  "Heavens, boy, you're cold as ice. Let's get you down to the house."

  Rusty regarded James curiously, head cocked to one side. James put his hand down to the dog's head, scratched behind the ears. "Don't worry, boy, it's just me."

  The dog huffed.

  Now.

  They walked out of the apple orchard, down the gentle grassed slope of the hill. It was late in the day. The sun had painted the west orange. Overhead, the fattening sickle of the coming hunter's moon was brightening, from pale yellow to bold amber. They could see their breath as they walked. Below, the farmhouse pushed a thin line of trailing smoke from its brick chimney.

  "Martha!" Ben called as they set their feet on the curling stoned walk to the front porch. "Martha, get a tub ready!"

  On the front porch, leaning solidly against the doorpost, was Martha's hoe, its blade lipped with dirt.

  As Ben mounted the porch, James lifted the hoe in both hands, raised it blade side up.

  Ben reached to open the door, and James brought the hoe down on the back of his head.

  The lip of dried dirt flew in a neat line from the edge of the hoe. James heard the rushing breath, surprised little sound that Ben made. Ben collapsed to his knees, hands groping. James planted his feet, raised the hoe. Ben was reaching for the back of his neck when James hit him again, a stronger blow.

  There was only the sound of the curved metal fastener between hoe and wooden handle hitting Ben's skull. James brought the hoe down again. The flat blade broke free, leaving the fastener intact, looking like a curled metal finger.

  The dogs began to howl. James turned to them. Rusty backed away on his haunches, ears flattened back, barking fiercely.

  "Come here, boy," James said.

  Inside the house there was commotion. James heard Martha walking the creaking floorboards to the front hallway. "What's all this about?" she said.

  James took a quick step off the porch. He feinted a blow at Rusty, then struck out at Rags, who had stayed on the edge of the porch. The blow caught the dog in the left eye. Rags yelped, backed off the porch into the dirt. James followed. A short, hard thrust and the dog lay still.

  James faced Rusty, who had backed farther away. "Come here," he said.

  The dog made a deep, growling sound.

  The front door of the house opened, and Rusty turned and ran.

  James quickly mounted the porch steps. As Martha's eyes registered Ben lying in a pool of blood, James drove her back with the hoe into the front hallway. She let out a broken cry. She fell onto the floor inside, and the screen door closed between them. James ripped it viciously open. Martha sought to rise and failed.

  James brought the instrument down, a long sliding curve to the side of her head. Martha's eyes unfocused. He hit her again. A burp of blood spotted her tongue.

  As the weapon rounded again on her, she locked her eyes on James and cried out, "Barry!"

  He struck her once more, and she was silent.

  James marched out onto the porch to look for the dog. It was nearly dark. He thought he saw Rusty up the slope, heading for the apple orchard, but he could not be sure. There was not enough moonlight to hunt by. The dog would have to wait.

  In the barn, James found an electric Coleman lantern and a shovel. He set the lantern at the tilled edge of the garden and turned it on.

  Its twin neon rods flashed to low, blue-white brilliance.

  He dug two deep, wide holes, eight feet apart. He dragged the two bodies from the house. He threw Rags and the broken hoe pieces into the hole with Martha, spaded dirt into the holes, spread the remaining dirt over the rest of the tilled area. He worked on it for a long time, until it looked just as it had before.

  Where he had hit Rags near the porch there was blood. By lantern light, on his hands and knees, he dusted it into the dirt.

  There were stains on the porch and in the front hallway. He scrubbed them out. Then he put the lantern and shovel away and went into the house.

  There was a low fire in the wood stove in the living room. He stoked it. He began to shiver. He heard a sound: his teeth chattering.

  He lay down on the couch, head on one stiff arm, and stared at the ceiling.

  He did not close his eyes.

  Somewhere deep in the night, when it was coldest, he heard the mournful bark of a dog and said, not with his own voice, "Yes, I'm back."

  8

  October 22nd

  Davey Putnam watched the black-and-white police cruiser stop in front of the house from his second-story window. He hoped for a moment it would continue on, pull away from the curb. But the door on the driver's side angled open and the crew-cut, square frame of Officer Johnston got out.

  "Damn," Davey said.

  Below him, he heard the front door open. He saw his foster father come down the walk halfway to meet the cop. "What is it now?" ole Jack yelled.

  "In the house, please," Johnston replied, and firmly, the cop got him to turn around and bring the argument into the house.

  Argument it was. Davey went to the hole in the floorboards next to his bed, where a cable-TV hole had once been drilled for the former owners. He couldn't hear what was going on below. They had moved into the back of the house, probably the kitchen.

  Davey got up, opened the door to his room a crack. He heard the low, unintelligible voice of the cop. Then he heard ole Jack nearly shout, "I don't care if the kid's old man tried to have you fired! That's between you and him! Stop getting on my ass about it!"

  That was all he heard for a while. Occasionally, there was the thin, piping rasp of The Mouth, her mousy, annoying whine contrasting with the two male voices. Johnston was talking long and even. After a while he was doing all the talking.

  After twenty minutes or so Davey heard Officer Johnston say, "All right." He heard the cop approach the front door and leave. Davey went to the window and watched Johnston get into his black-and-white, rev the engine, pull sharply out from the curb.

  Davey sat on the bed and watched the sweep second hand on the old electric clock next to his bed. He thought of it as a game. The longest it had ever taken for them to call him after the cops had come was four minutes and fifteen seconds.

  Five minutes went by, and nothing happened.

  He went to the door, opened it again, listened. A scraping sound, a snatch of a weak hum. The Mouth in the kitchen, getting dinner ready.

  Where was ole Jack?

  Davey heard the back door creak open. He heard ole Jack say, "Where the fuck is that other beer?"

  Timidly, The Mouth said, "That was the last one. I told you."

  "The hell it was! I bought two extra, there were only eight! Now where the hell is the last one!"

  "Jack, there were seven—"

  "That kid take it? Get the little fucker down—"

  He heard The Mouth protest, heard the refrigerator door bang open, bottles rattle. She was probably moving things around desperately. The only way to avoid the beating was to find the beer. "Maybe you're right, Jack," she whimpered. "Maybe y
ou're right—"

  Then, a bray of triumph from ole Jack. "You dumb slut! Right here on the door shelf! I told you there were eight!"

  The refrigerator door slammed shut. The back door slammed open and shut, ole Jack proclaiming The Mouth's stupidity. After a moment of whimpering, The Mouth returned to the scraping sound of preparing dinner.

  The back door creaked open again, flew closed with a bang. Ole Jack yelled, "Where is he!"

  "Jack—" The Mouth began.

  "Where is the little bastard! Get him down here!"

  The tone in his voice told Davey this was not something she could talk him out of. They all knew the drill. There were levels to ole Jack's violence, and this was near the top. A quick flare of fuse had been lit, reached the bomb in no time. When that powder went off, everybody got burned.

  "I said get him down here!"

  Davey heard the giving, hard slap of flesh against flesh, heard The Mouth's whimpering cut to a sudden cry, followed by moans. Another slap. Ole Jack cursed, grunting with each blow he gave her. His voice vibrated in cadence with the hits: "WHERE—THE—FUCK—IS—HE!"

  Between her whimpers she said, "Up . . . stairs . . . he's . . . upstairs . . ."

  Davey heard her gasp as ole Jack left off hitting her. Ole Jack tramped down the hallway, approached the stairs. Davey saw the small, balding head appear above the floor line before he slammed the door shut and put his weight against it.

  Ole Jack hit the door hard. It gave an inch before Davey reclosed it.

  Ole Jack yelled, grunted against the door again.

  Davey kept his weight on the door, digging his sneakers into the nicked floorboards.

  "Shit!" ole Jack yelled. The pressure eased against the door. Davey stepped back away as ole Jack hit the door full force. The door flew open, and ole Jack fell into the room.

  Davey bolted for the doorway. He was out into the hall before a heavy hand fell on his shoulder. He was pulled back into the bedroom. His foster father put both hands on him, turned him around, held him tight on the shoulder blades.