Tales from the Nightside

by Charles L. Grant

  He really isn't mean, but he doesn't understand, sometimes.

  So it was a while before I told him what I wanted to do, and after he looked at me funny for a minute he grabbed me up from the floor and took me out to the car. We went right downtown to this gigantic bookstore, and Steve picked out four or five magic books he thought I'd understand.

  On the way home he said, "It's funny, Jay, but there was a time when I wanted to be a magician, too."

  "So why didn't you?"

  He shrugged a little. "I guess I didn't want it badly enough. See, when you grow up and you have to decide what it is you want to do with your life, you really have to want it badly enough or it isn't going to work. If you want to be a doctor, you have to realize there's an awful lot of school to go through—"

  "Boy, I sure wouldn't want that."

  "—and money and things like that. Or if you want to be a teacher you have different things to learn. Or a writer or a—"

  "Magic man," I said, grinning.

  "Right," he said. "A magic man." Then he reached over and touched me on the leg. "Now you listen to me, pal—this magic stuff is hard work. It takes a long time to get right, and I don't want you to give up."

  "Oh, I won't," I promised. "I'm going to be the best magic man in the whole world when I grow up."

  He didn't say anything for a while. Then: "Why, Jay? Why magic?"

  "I don't know," I said. "Because it's nice."

  And it was work. Boy, it was hard work. Some things I couldn't do because my fingers were too short or I didn't have the right hidden things and I couldn't make them or buy them because I hadn't saved enough. But I got pretty good with cards and the shell trick and the coin trick and things like that. And every night I would show Helen and Steve a new trick, and they would applaud and ask me how I did it. I never told. I never told them once. You never tell a trick or it isn't magic anymore.

  But I still couldn't get anything to come out of my sleeve.

  Then it was May, and I was sitting out in back, wishing our house was on the river like Ellie's. I was wearing shorts because it felt good on my leg—though I still couldn't look at it all pink and shrively like that—and I was trying to get a pebble out of my sleeve without lowering my arm. The kitchen window was right over my head, and it was a while before I realized they were arguing in there.

  "Well, I don't care/' she said, like she was about to start crying. "I just don't care."

  "Helen, please be reasonable." And I could see without seeing him that he was standing with one hand on his hip and the other shoved in his hair, with this look on his face like nobody ever listens to anything he says. "Helen, this is the chance we've been waiting for, and we simply cannot take Jay with us."

  "But why not?"

  "Damnit, Helen, use your head! Kuwait isn't London, y'know. It may have tons of money, but it isn't the kind of place I'd want the boy to grow up in. It'll be at least a year, and he's barely hanging in school as it is. God, doesn't he have enough problems?"

  "We could get tutors."

  "Helen."

  "We...”

  I couldn't hear anymore for a while, but it didn't matter. The sun went cold, and the trees seemed like they were covered in ice. I snapped my brace back on and walked out to the street. Ellie and a few others were playing hopscotch on the sidewalk across the way, but when they called to me I didn't answer. I didn't feel like it. They only played with me because their mothers told them to. Not all of them; some of them. And it was hard to tell from one day to another which ones it was.

  So I walked for a couple of blocks until I was in front of the luncheonette, looking at the pictures of the sundaes and sodas that were all white from the sun. Then this man walked out, and before I knew I grabbed his arm to stop him. It was the Great And Astounding Albert, only he didn't look so great or astounding without his wedding suit or his mustache.

  "Mr. Albert," I said, and then I saw what I was doing, so I tried a smile that felt real silly and backed away from him.

  He stared down at me from about a mile up, frowning like he thought he should know me but he didn't. We stood there for a couple of seconds before I told him where I was from and where I saw him, and he smiled and nodded as if he'd guessed it all along. And when I told him I was going to be a magic man when I grew up, he put a hand on my shoulder and took me inside where he lifted me onto a red counter stool, and we each had a double icecream soda while he told me all the places he'd been and the famous people he'd known, and how all the other magic men used to come see him but now they don't anymore.

  It was the first time I noticed how old he was.

  "It's hard, Jay," he said, suddenly sad and looking tired. "I've lost the knack, it seems, to make the grown-ups believe."

  "But it's all tricks, isn't it?"

  "Sure it is. But the real trick is to make it look like it isn't a trick, but magic."

  I thought about that for a moment, not really understanding. Then we talked some more, and he reached out and pulled a dollar bill from behind my ear. I brushed a hand through my hair and laughed, and before I knew it I was telling him how I couldn't pull anything out of my sleeve because every time I let my arm down the things would fall out. Well, he looked really serious at me for a while, and I was afraid I'd said something to get him mad. There were other people coming in and out and buying the papers and smiling at me like they knew me, but I didn't pay them any attention because just then the Great And Astounding Albert held up his arm and pulled down the cuff of his jacket and said, "What do you see up there, boy?"

  I kind of leaned forward and squinted. "Air."

  He snapped his arm straight out and I ducked, frowned, looked up the sleeve again and said, "Still air."

  Then he made a pass in front of me, slow and gentle, like a snake charming a robin. Slow and gentle before he cupped his hand like there was something in it. I waited, and one by one his fingers opened. "Now what do you see?"

  I didn't know what to say. "Air."

  "And that's all there ever is, son. Air. Everything else comes from someplace else, and there's nothing up my sleeve but air." He closed his fingers again, blew on them, opened them and said, "What's there now?"

  It was getting awfully silly. "Air."

  "See? Now you try it."

  Well, I thought he was kind of crazy being so old, but he told me again so I rubbed my hands together, made the same moves he did as best I could, and pulled air from my sleeve, making the kind of trumpet sound with my lips like they do on television when the elephant disappears. Then Albert laughed and I laughed, and before I knew it I'd made the slow pass in front of the waitress's face and tucked the air back in my sleeve. She giggled and started to cough, but I was excited because I suddenly knew what Albert was saying about tricks and magic, and I thanked him politely because my mother always told me to be polite, then I slid off the stool and hurried home as fast as I could.

  Ellie and the others were still playing hopscotch, and when they saw me run-hobbling like that they thought something was wrong so they ran across the street. I told them not to worry, though, and before I could stop myself I had shown them my trick.

  "Hey, that's not magic," she said, twisting up her face like she'd eaten something terrible.

  "That's what you think," I told her, then ran-hobbled inside and went straight to my room. I practiced. I practiced hard. And after dinner that night I told Helen and Steve I was going to put on a big show for them.

  "Jay, I'm really not in the mood," Steve said. "I've had a bad day."

  "Oh, Steve," Helen said. Her eyes weren't normal; they were all red and swollen, and I knew it was because of the things I'd heard.

  "Hey," I said, "it's all right, don't worry. I'm going to be such a great magic man that Uncle Steve can stay home and he can tell his boss to—" And I snapped my fingers in the air.

  I thought they would laugh.

  They didn't.

  Steve only got a funny red in his face, and Helen started t
o cry again. Then Steve put his hands around my waist and pulled me close and said, "Jay, there's no better boy in the whole world than you. And I swear, if I ever regretted having you with us I take it all back." I think he was going to cry, too, but he swallowed hard and didn't. "But son, this is the most important part of my career right now. If I make this move and do a good job, I'm going to be the most important man in the office. And when your aunt and I-—"

  The telephone rang. Helen went to answer it, but Steve kept on talking. I didn't hear him, though. There was a noise in my head, like the ocean makes when you listen at a seashell. I was trying with all my might to know what he was saying to me, but all I got was that I was going to stay at a place called Greenbriar until they came back from the Arabs—and that was going to be a very long time. I didn't like that, and I tried to tell him my magic trick was all we ever needed, but just then Helen came back.

  "What is it, love?" Steve said, pushing me back a little and getting up.

  "That was Alice." She looked at me and I looked back and ail of a sudden she was on her knees and hugging me, telling me it was going to be all right, dear, and it happened sometimes, and it sure was a long time before I figured out that Ellie had gone to where my parents and my sisters had gone, that night in the rain.

  Helen thought I was going to feel bad, but I didn't. Ellie wasn't a family person. She was the little girl who lived on the other side of Hawthorne Street, and there are lots of little girls like that around here, so I was sorry for Ellie's mother instead. But I wasn't all that sad about it. I just said that if they didn't want to see my new trick because of Ellie's mother then that was all right, and Helen said would I mind waiting a day or so, so I said no, that was okay.

  The next day in school the teacher had us all say a prayer to God for Ellie and Jenny and Eddie and Sissy and Kristy, and then the nurse came in and looked at our tongues and felt our necks and foreheads, and a couple of the kids were sent home to their doctors. I was glad I didn't have to go home, because it was hard for me in school some days since I missed a lot whenever I had to go into the hospital for the operations to fix the bones and muscles in my leg.

  I did all my work the best way I knew how, got a gold star for my spelling and a silver one for arithmetic, and brought the papers home to show Helen and Steve.

  But there was no one in the kitchen, and no one in the backyard, so I decided to go upstairs and practice my new magic. I was almost in my room when I heard the noise down the hall. It sounded like laughing, but the kind of laughing you get because something hurts but not bad enough to cry. I was scared. I didn't want anyone to be I sick, or go where mother and father went, so I ran down there and I opened the door.

  Steve and Helen were in the bed. Steve was on top of my aunt, and he was naked. And she was shaking her head all over the pillow and making those laughing-hurt noises, and I didn't know what to do so I just stood there until Helen opened her eyes and I made a kind of squeak, like a mouse. Steve rolled off her and pulled the sheet up to his stomach.

  "What the hell do you think you're doing?" He was mad, real mad. "Explain yourself, Jay. Why were you watching us?"

  I tried to think as fast as I could, and the only thing I could think I of was the magic. So I started to talk, so fast I couldn't understand f what I was saying. And while I talked I went over to the bed and H winked at Aunt Helen and made a slow and gentle pass in front of Steve, and tucked the air up my sleeve.

  "What," he said, "the hell was that supposed to be?"

  I blinked. "Magic."

  He looked at Helen, but she only shrugged and tried to smile.

  When he looked back to me, though, he wasn't smiling at all. "Jay, I don't know what to say to you. What you've done... He swallowed, and I thought he was going to cry again. He coughed and punched his chest. "You've got to learn... you've got..." He frowned, then reached out and pushed me away. I fell back against the wall he pushed me so hard, but I didn't cry because the next thing I knew he was lying on the floor, his legs all tangled in the sheets and his face so blue it was almost purple.

  Aunt Helen screamed.

  So I screamed, too. But when I went over so she could hold me and tell me what was wrong, she crawled away like I was some kind of snake or something, screaming and shrieking and making my head ache. I ran away. I should have stayed there and taken care of her, but I couldn't stand all the screaming because I had heard the screaming before, at night, in the rain, while the fire came in the car and took my parents away.

  I heard footsteps on the stairs a few minutes later. A lot of people running in and out. A doctor came in and checked me over, and it wasn't until I slipped off the bed and went into the hall that I heard someone say Uncle Steve was dead. I don't know what the word was, but it means you don't have any air left in your lungs.

  I looked down at my hand. I looked up and saw Aunt Helen in her pink bathrobe watching me. Alice was standing beside her, and she was watching me, too.

  "I don't want Uncle Steve dead," I said, feeling the tears and the bump inside my chest.

  A policeman came by, and another doctor, and they all started talking. And I started thinking. It wasn't very hard, though, to know what the Great And Astounding Albert had taught me, and I felt so bad that I could barely see through all the crying. I started to walk down the hall, down to Steve's bedroom, and no one paid any attention to me. Helen was making little sounds, and the policeman and the doctor were talking very quietly, and Mrs. DePaul was somewhere there, so no one saw me when I went into the room.

  There was a stretcher on the floor. And two doctors were kneeling by Uncle Steve's body, looking like they were getting ready to put him on this green plastic stuff that looked like a garbage bag. I didn't want Steve in a garbage bag. I didn't want him dead. So when the men turned around I went over there and knelt beside him and took his hand and put it next to my cheek, and I promised him I would never do magic again. Then I took the air from the sleeve and made a slow and gentle pass in front of his face. The doctors yelled at me, Helen screamed again, and suddenly everyone was jumping around and pushing me away and Steve was sitting up with a nothing look in his face.

  A nothing look. Nothing behind his eyes, and spit coming out of his mouth, and he wet himself like a baby while Helen fell to the floor.

  And there was no one left to take care of me.

  They took Aunt Helen and Uncle Steve away in an ambulance. Then a nice woman in a green dress said she was from the town and would see that I wouldn't be alone anymore.

  And that's how I came to Greenbriar.

  A lot of brick buildings and kids like me who have something wrong with their legs or their arms or they can't get out of bed; teachers and classrooms and lots of television and special ways to play ball. Every Saturday afternoon they show movies in the little theater. Every Saturday night and on holidays someone comes to do a show, like cowboy singers and clowns and people with animals... and a whole lot of magicians.

  On Sundays there's visitors.

  But no one for me. Uncle Steve is in a place like mine, only I don't think it's as much fun, and no one will tell me what happened to Aunt Helen. The kids from my old school don't come at all, and I'll bet that's because their mothers won't let them.

  And maybe it's wrong, but I don't care. I have my own little room and I practice every night. And as soon as I know I'm good enough, I'll go away. I know exactly where I'm going and what I'm going to do. See, it isn't any fun to be the best magic man in the world if nobody wants to see you. So I'm going to this place way down on the other side of the park on Hawthorne Street. I'm going to do slow and gentle passes. Then Marlene and Deirdre and Ginny and father will come home with me, just like always.

  And mother, of course, because she was always my friend.

  Like Uncle Steve said—if you want it bad enough, you can do it. And I want this very badly. After all, who's going to stop me?

  With nothing up this sleeve, and nothing up this sleeve... but lots and l
ots of air.

  When All the Children Call My Name

  1

  Poe asked the question: Is all that we see or seem but a dream within a dream?

  No. But I wish it was.

  And in the meantime, in the waiting... another drink, another cigarette—one follows the other like sip-and swallow as I look out over the porch to the fence, and the gate. In darkness.

  In memories.

  It used to be, this time of year, a season of excitement for me, when my skin tingled and my blood sped its youth-- when you knew how much better it felt to go from cold to warm than hot to cool. Fireplaces and hearths and a warm I soothing brandy meant something then, and mufflers and blankets fresh from the attic trunk and the soft easy comfort of a grumbling furnace. It all meant something then, just as it all means something now; but the difference between some-thing and something is a years-long crossing, and if I could only find a detour I might have missed, maybe then I could go to bed.

  I retired from the force nearly five years ago, long before the age when my uniform and waistline would label me dinosaur. I wanted to travel, to experience, to obey the cliche of doing that which I had never done before it was too late, and I remember it with fondness. So I did, and I did, and when I returned to the village nothing had changed that I could see, and there were no deaths that surprised me.

  Last spring it was, then, when I was offered a part-time job as a guard/confessor/patcher of wounds in a small playground on the far side of town.

  It was a dastardly move old Greshton made. He knew I’d be chafing as soon as I grew tired of bending over the roses that thorned and the apple trees that bore fruit despite my clumsiness and the delusion that I knew what I was doing.

  “Kit,” he said not two weeks after I’d returned, “I’ll be honest with you. Nobody wants to do it for the money we’re offering.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t either, Marve,” I said, “except that I might run against you next fall and I’ll need your vote.”