The Collection

by Bentley Little

  Now, however, standing in front of the multistory struc­ture, looking into the darkened doorway, the idea did not sound nearly so good or nearly so feasible. Theoretically, they should be braver in a group than they were individually. There was safety in numbers. But it turned out that they were just as scared together as apart. Steve looked up toward the top of the building, where the bare concrete wall was blackened by soot, where flames had once leaped up through the night stillness toward the moon, and he silently hoped that one of them would chicken out. Maybe Seun, the youngest of them, would start crying and want to go home.

  But all three of them stared silently at him, waiting for him to make the decision.

  "Let's go," he said, turning on his flashlight.

  They walked slowly, softly, cautiously, through the open doorway of the warehouse, Steve leading, Jimmy and Bill following, Seun bringing up the rear. Gravel and charred rubble crunched beneath their feet.

  "I don't want to be last!" Seun said suddenly. "I want to be in the middle!"

  "Jimmy! Trade!" Steve hissed. He didn't want any of them to talk, but if they did talk he wanted them to whisper. He wasn't quite sure why.

  "Why me?" Jimmy hissed back.

  " 'Cause I said so!" Steve told him.

  Jimmy and Seun switched places, and all of them moved a little closer together.

  They walked farther into the darkness. Soon the doorway was little more than a patch of square white light behind them, no longer offering any illumination. The gravel crunched beneath their feet as they walked, and their flash­lights played nervously upon the walls and floor. The thin yellowish beams piercing the blackness made the surround­ing dark seem that much darker.

  "I don't think we're supposed to be in here," Bill whis­pered.

  "Of course we're not," Steve whispered back. "But no one cares. The place is abandoned."

  "I mean, I think the other half of it's across the border."

  They all stopped. None of them had thought of that. De­spite the way it looked on the maps, the border between Cal­ifornia and Mexico was not a straight line, they all knew. Several stores and homes throughout the city straddled the boundary, and many of them had rooms which were techni­cally in both nations.

  Visions of himself falling over some stray chunk of con­crete and breaking his leg in the Mexico side of the ware­house pushed themselves into Steve's consciousness. He didn't know what would happen if that occurred. Would he have to be rushed to a Mexican hospital? By a Mexican am­bulance? Or would he have to crawl back across that invisi­ble border into his own country?

  "Don't worry about it," he said aloud. They started walking again.

  Although it was too dark to see the sides of the ware­house, Steve had the feeling that the walls had narrowed, that they were now walking through a room much smaller than that which they had originally entered. He shined his light to the left and right, following the contours of the floor, but his beam was not strong enough to reach a wall. He de­cided to change course, to find a wall and follow it instead of stumbling through this inky blackness in the center of the building. He veered off thirty degrees and the other kids fol­lowed him.

  He bumped his head on a beam. Steve screamed, and his right hand shot instantly to his forehead to check for blood. His fingers came back dry. "Jesus!" he said.

  "What is it?" Seun's voice was scared. "Nothing." Steve played his light along the wooden beam. But it was not a beam. He had reached a wall. His eyes and his flashlight had been concentrated on the floor, and he had been looking through a large hole in the bottom section of the wall. He shined his light to the left and to the right and saw several similar holes. Holes big enough for a person to crawl through. He bent down on his knees and crept closer to the nearest one, shining his light through to the next room. It looked exactly the same.

  "Let's crawl through," he said, "see what's on the other

  side."

  "No!" Seun said.

  Steve knew how Seun felt, but his fear was now sub-servient to his spirit of adventure. They had come here to ex­plore, and they would explore.

  He crawled through the hole.

  "Steve!" Seun yelled.

  "Come on through. There're no monsters."

  There was a quick moment of indistinguishable mum­bling from the other side of the wall, then Jimmy poked his head through. Seun followed, scrambling, and Bill came im­mediately afterward. They stood up and shook themselves off, Jimmy brushing what felt like cobwebs from his hair.

  "What do we do now?" Bill asked.

  "Search around." Steve started walking, following the wall, keeping his left hand in constant contact with the smooth concrete.

  "Are we going to be able to find our way back?" Seun asked.

  "Don't worry about it," Steve said.

  There was not so much rubble on the floor here, and the ground seemed much softer beneath their feet. It felt like dirt. Steve pointed his flashlight up for a second and he could see no ceiling.

  They kept walking.

  The four boys wandered past a series of doors. Steve turned in one of them and the rest followed. They were in a much smaller room, and the walls on both sides could be made out with their flashlights. They walked out of the room through another door and found themselves in a cavernous space with an endlessly high ceiling. Their footsteps echoed as they walked.

  Steve was no longer following any kind of wall, and he swung his beam back and forth across the ground in front of him to make sure he knew what was up ahead. The light touched upon an ancient rotting box in a slimy pool of water, moved across several chunks of wood and plaster, and stopped on something small and smooth and brown.

  A baby.

  Steve stood in place, staring at the infant trapped in his beam, and Seun ran into his back. Jimmy and Bill, walking side by side, ran into Seun.

  The baby was obviously Mexican and obviously dead. It lay scrunched and unmoving, half in and half out of a pud­dle of stagnant water. A trail of small ants wound around its folds of fat and entered its open, toothless mouth. Steve moved slowly forward and tentatively touched the baby's skin. It was cold and soft and spongy and gave a little at the poke of his finger. Immediately he drew back.

  "What is it?" Seun asked. His voice was more hushed than usual, whether from awe or fear Steve could not tell.

  "It's a baby."

  "How did it get here?"

  Steve shook his head. He did not know himself. Had the baby been born in the warehouse and abandoned by its mother to die in the darkness of the deserted building? Had the baby been born dead and left there? Had it been brought by illegal aliens trying to sneak into the country and left be­hind accidentally?

  Steve walked carefully around the dead infant. It was small, and there was no hair on its body. It did not look more than a week or so old.

  The beam of his flashlight touched the baby's white eyes and was reflected back.

  He knelt down silently in front of the infant and stared into its face, gazing raptly at its pure innocent expression. He had never seen anything like it. The infant's dead eyes stared back, seeing nothing, seeing everything, knowing all.

  Jimmy knelt down next to Steve and gazed at the Mexi­can baby to see what was so fascinating.

  Bill, captured by the look of hope on the infant's face, so incongruous in these terrible circumstances, bent down as · well.

  Seun, dropping silently to his knees, completed the semi­circle.

  The low benches, stolen from the barbecue sets of moth­ers and fathers, were arranged like pews in front of the altar. Candles of various sizes and colors, also stolen, burned dimly in their makeshift holders. In front of the benches, on the altar itself, the baby sat upright in a Coca-Cola crate, staring out into the darkness. The crate had been spray painted gold.

  A single beam from a flashlight perched on top of a card­board box shone into the baby's white eyes and was re­flected back.

  There were more than four of them now. Nearly twent
y kids, all approximately the same age, sat silently on the benches staring at the dead infant. None of them spoke. None of them ever spoke.

  Steve knelt before the baby, lost in thought. He saw an ant crawl slowly up the baby's fat brown arm, and he flicked it off. The ant went flying into the darkness.

  There was a rustling sound from the area off to Steve's left, and he turned to see what caused the noise. A new kid— a girl—emerged from the depths of the warehouse. Her nice blue dress was dirty and sweat rolled down her face. It was obvious that she had been stumbling around in the dark for some time, trying to find them.

  Steve smiled at her. He said nothing, but she understood.

  She knelt down next to him in front of the baby. Her face was filled with rapture.

  A few minutes later, the girl withdrew from her small purse a dead lizard. She held it gingerly by the tail and dropped it into the round fishbowl in front of the baby. There was a split-second flash of glowing luminescence, and the lizard dissolved in the bubbling liquid inside the bowl.

  Steve patted the girl's head and she smiled, proud of her­self.

  They sat in silence, staring at the baby.

  One of the candles burned all the way down and after a few last gasps of life, a few final flickers of fire, was extin­guished.

  They sat in silence, staring at the baby.

  One by one, the candles surrounding the benches and the altar went out. When the last one had finally flickered out of existence, the kids on the benches stood up and walked silently, in single file, into the blackness. The girl, too, stood up, moved away from Steve's side, and started back the way she'd come. Jimmy and Bill and Seun walked up to the altar where Steve still knelt. They bent down for a moment them­selves, then stood up as one.

  They covered the baby's crate with a black cloth.

  Walking back through the labyrinthian warehouse toward the outside, Steve wondered how he could have ever been afraid of the building. Now it was more friendly than home, and even little Seun traversed the way without a light. The whole tone of the place had changed.

  And all because of the baby.

  As always, the bright light of the afternoon hurt their eyes as they stepped out of the warehouse. The other kids were gone, already starting home, and there was no sign of them. Steve squinted in the direct sunlight, trying to keep his eyes from watering. "What time is it?" he asked.

  Bill smiled. "After lunch and before dinner."

  Steve scowled at him. "Anybody have a watch?"

  "It's about three," Jimmy said.

  They started walking. Bill picked up a stick and threw it into the bushes. Overhead, a plane sailed through the clear blue sky a few seconds ahead of its noise, leaving a trail of jet white in the air behind it.

  "He seems so alone," Seun said.

  Steve looked at him. "What?"

  "He seems so alone. Don't you ever feel that way? I mean, what does He do when we're not there? He's all alone."

  Steve stared at Seun. He had been thinking the same thing while he had been kneeling in front of the baby. He picked up a rock and looked at it. The rock resembled a frog. He held it between his thumb and forefinger and threw it. It whizzed through the air and hit a tree. "He is alone," he said.

  "He doesn't have to be."

  "What can we do about it?" Jimmy asked.

  "Follow me." Seun ran down the path through the ravine and up the hill toward his house. He looked back at Steve as he ran. "I been saving this." He led the way through the wall of oleanders into his back yard. He pulled open the secret door to the clubhouse. The clubhouse had sat there virtually unused ever since they'd found the baby. The other three followed him in.

  "Look," Seun said.

  In the center of the floor, in a gold Coke crate, lay a little baby girl. She was dead. At her feet, Seun had poured out a jarful of black ants he had caught, hoping they would crawl up her body, but instead they had crawled onto the floor and were busily trying to find a way out of the clubhouse.

  Steve knelt down in front of the baby. "Who is she?"

  "Mindy Martin."

  "Mrs. Martin's daughter?"

  Seun nodded.

  Steve looked up at him. "How did you get her?"

  Seun smiled. "That's my business."

  "Was she already dead or did you ... kill her?"

  "Does it matter?"

  "No. I guess not." Steve looked into the box and hesi­tantly put his finger forth. The girl's skin was cold and springy. He felt an instant of admiration for Seun. "How long have you had her?"

  "Since yesterday. I got the box last week and painted it, but I didn't get her 'til yesterday."

  Steve stood up. "Let's take her out there."

  Seun looked nervous. "Think He'll like her?"

  "There's only one way to find out."

  Seun drew out a black cloth from his pocket and spread it over the top of the crate. All four of them picked up the baby, each taking a corner of the box. They lifted it through the secret entrance. Seun closed up the clubhouse and they started through the oleanders.

  "Hey, what are you doing?" Seun's mother came out onto the back porch and stared at them. "Where are you going?"

  The four boys stopped, looking first at each other, then at her. "Nothing," Seun said. "We're just playing."

  "Playing what?"

  "Church."

  She looked surprised. "Church?"

  All four of the boys nodded.

  She smiled and shook her head. "Okay. But you better be back in time for dinner."

  "We will," Seun said.

  They carried the box through the oleanders and started walking toward the warehouse.

  Coming Home Again

  A friend of mine's parents divorced when he was ten. His father remarried when my friend was in high school, but my friend never liked his father's new wife. She seemed all right to me, but in his mind she was a complete witch.

  The two of us lost touch, but years later I saw him again, and he was still complaining about his wicked stepmother. I thought, "Your father could have mar­ried someone so much worse...."

  ***

  On the plane ride over, I tried to think of what I would say. The situation was bound to be awkward. I had been trying for over a decade to get my father to go out with other women, but now that he seemed to have found someone he cared about I was torn with conflicting emotions. On the one hand, I wanted him to be happy—he was my father and I loved him. On the other hand, I had also loved my mother and I couldn't help feeling, on some gut emotional level out of reach of my rational mind, that by finding someone else he was betraying her memory.

  And he might love this new woman more than he 'd loved her.

  I guess that was my real fear. What if he found someone he loved more than my mother? What if his emotions found not just a substitute for her but a replacement for her? A woman who would supersede my mother's place in his emo­tional hierarchy.

  It was a babyish fear, I admit. An immature, childish worry. My mother would have been happy for him. She wouldn't have wanted him to live forever in that celibate state of self-imposed social exile that he'd been inhabiting since her death. And I, too, wanted him to be happy.

  I just didn't want his happiness to come at her expense.

  I glanced down again at the folded letter in my lap. "I have found someone I care for very much," he'd written in his typically formal style. "I'd like you two to meet."

  I leaned my chair back and closed my eyes. I wanted to like her; I really did. I hoped I would.

  The plane landed in LA two hours later. I disembarked, found my luggage, and walked across the street to the cof­fee shop where my father had said he'd meet me. He was standing next to the open trunk of a new Pontiac in the park­ing lot. He was smiling, and he looked better than he had in years. The gaunt tiredness which I thought had settled into his features for good had disappeared, and his formerly sal­low skin looked tan and healthy. As always, he was dressed in a formal suit—vest, ti
e, the whole works. My own clothes were nice, and comfortably stylish, but next to him I felt pitifully underdressed.

  "It's good to see you," he said, and held out his hand.

  "You too," I said. I couldn't help smiling. He looked so good, so fit and healthy and happy. I shook his hand. Our family had never been big on physical demonstrations of af­fection, and the pressing of palms was about as close as we ever got to a public display of closeness.

  He took one of my suitcases and loaded it into the trunk; I put the other one right next to it. "How are things with you?" he asked.

  "Oh, about the same as always." I grinned. "But your life seems to have taken a turn for the better."

  He laughed heartily, and I realized suddenly that it had been years since I'd heard him laugh that way. "Yes," he said. "That is true. That is very true."

  He unlocked my door and I got into the car, sliding across the seat to unlock his side. "So what's her name?" I asked. "You never did tell me."

  He smile cryptically. "You'll see."

  "Come on," I told him.

  "We'll be home in ten minutes." He put the car into re­verse and looked at me. "It's good to see you again, son. I'm glad you came out to see me."

  We drove over the familiar side streets toward home. It was not a ten-minute drive from the airport. It was not even a twenty-minute drive. Our home in Long Beach was a good forty-five minutes from the airport even without traffic, and we happened to be driving during rush hour. But I'd known that ahead of time, and I didn't mind. We talked a lot, got caught up on new gossip, restated old positions, and fell into our old familiar patterns.

  By the time we pulled off the freeway onto Lakewood it was approaching dinnertime. I hadn't had a thing to eat save an almost inedible lunch on the plane, and I was starved. "Is she going to have dinner ready for us?" I asked.

  My father shook his head. "We'll eat out."

  I'd been trying to determine, through subtle questioning, whether or not his new girlfriend lived with him, and I gath-ered that she did. I was surprised. My father had always been ultraconservative, the most proper of men, and I could not imagine him lowering his concrete moral standards enough to live with a woman outside of wedlock.