The child he almost recognized turned and caught sight of him.
“Mommy, what’s that man looking at?”
His breath caught in his throat.
No, he thought numbly.
“He looks sad,” the little boy said.
“Maybe he’s remembering what it was like to be young like you,” David’s mother responded. “Maybe he doesn’t have anybody, and seeing your party makes him think back on happier times.”
“Will I ever be old like that?” little David asked.
His mother leaned forward and kissed his cheek.
“Not for a very, very long time,” she said.
The offending shoelace now firmly tied and double-knotted, David and his mother rejoined the party. In the background, a dim shadow, his father placed candles on the cake, whistling cheerfully.
Outside, in a sunlight that didn’t seem as warm or as bright as he had once remembered, David turned, smiling faintly, and walked slowly back up the street toward a time that was his own.
He missed it very much.
The Piano
A solid, cherry-stained Chickering, it has stood in Grandma’s living room for seventy-two years. Her parents gave it to her in 1935, an early wedding present. Each key, starting with the first on the left, bears a tuner’s date, and those run up until 1971. After that, nothing. Thirty-six years without a tune, and the river of people who touch the keys has slowed to a trickle, then run dry over slow but inexorable decades.
Apparently many played it back in the day, although I find that hard to believe. Ever since I can remember it has stood like any other piece of furniture: a silent prop—the bench a place for piles of newspapers and magazines, the flat top above the tuning wires a table for doilies, framed photos, and trinkets from Spain and France. I now sit by it, bumping a pile of Newsweeks that slide to the floor in a cascade.
“My fingers used to fly across the keys,” Grandma tells me, rocking in her blue easy chair across the room. Only fifteen feet away, the piano is beyond her field of vision. “It’s still a good piano, but it needs tuning, and I can’t play it anymore.”
“Did Mom used to play it?” I ask, stacking up the magazines.
“She sure did. She was very talented. All through high school she practiced on that piano. I don’t know why she gave it up.”
I nod, glancing around with mute contentment. The whole living room is a time capsule; a steady, warm element in a life full of change. I am almost thirty, and all the other places from my childhood have gone away—or I have gone away from them.
Then I turn to Grandma again, and my contentment fades. She is ninety-four, and the last three years have not been kind.
“I have no idea who’s going to take it,” she says abruptly.
“Hmm? What’s that?”
“Who’s going to take it once I’m gone.” She’s looking toward the wooden cover over the keys.
“Oh, don’t worry about that.”
“No one I know would want it. Your uncle doesn’t have room and your mother no longer plays. I don’t think you’d want it, either. It’s a shame.”
“Oh, Grandma, I’d love to have it, but there isn’t much room in my house.”
“That’s all right. I understand.”
“I’m sure Mom would be thrilled with it. Besides, there’s no reason to think about that right now. You’re not going anywhere anytime soon.”
But she doesn’t look convinced. I think of her losses, which are too numerous to list. She knows better. I wonder, fleetingly, if there is anything left from her youth that hasn’t yet gone away.
A little while later she goes out to the kitchen and makes supper for us—biscuits and chicken. The biscuits are burnt and the chicken too salty, but it’s a good meal. I eat it all.
After we wash the dishes I say goodbye. She presses a check into my hand. Without looking, I know it’s for fifty dollars. Without looking, I can picture her shaky script perfectly. I try to refuse it but she insists. Then I step out into the cool October afternoon and unlock the car.
When I was little, my grandparents always waved at me from the door as the family drove away. Now, as I drive off alone, it’s just Grandma who sees me off. She watches until I’m down the road and long out of her sight. Through the rearview mirror I see her front door finally close.
Three blocks away, I realize I’ve forgotten a pot of russet mums she gave me for my front yard. It’s still sitting on the walk beside the driveway. She’ll be hurt if I don’t go back for it. I turn the car around.
She doesn’t hear my tires crunch the driveway stones. I pick up the flowers and pop the trunk.
And it’s only then, holding the flowers in my hands, leaning over the car, that I hear it: faint but clear, the sound of the piano.
Through the closed front door I listen to my grandmother playing a song that is eighty-one years old. I know it because of a ninth grade history project I once completed on the “Roaring ’20s.” She knows it because it was a song of her youth.
She doesn’t sing, but I know the words:
Blackbird, blackbird,
Singing the blues all day
Right outside of my door.
Blackbird, blackbird,
Why do you sit and say,
“There’s no sunshine in store.”
All through the winter you hung around.
Now I begin to feel homeward bound.
Blackbird, blackbird,
Gotta be on my way.
Where there’s sunshine galore…
The piano hasn’t been tuned in thirty-six years. Grandma has arthritis in her wrists and hands. She can hardly see, and misses keys.
I walk away before the song ends. It ushers me off, a living warmth from a long-gone time, an old thing that somehow hasn’t aged.
That evening I call Grandma and tell her not to worry about the fate of the piano—when the time comes, I’ll make room. And I’ll be sure to play it.
“Well!” she says, surprised but pleased. “What made you change your mind?”
I make up an excuse. How can I possibly tell her that I heard her play—and that to me, every note sounded perfect?
Arachno
The night shift dragged on, and the two Rose Asylum attendants watched the camera feed from Cell 142 with all the interest they could hope to rouse. Most of the patients were asleep or restrained, either zonked out on hypodermic Quaaludes or strapped down to their beds. But the patient in Cell 142, Ms. Burgett, was wide awake. That meant amusement for Pete Younker and Mike Cavell.
Tonight, Cavell noted that Younker had again taken up one of his favorite entertainments. The knapsack he carried bulged in a familiar way, and when Dr. Peterson finally checked out for the night shortly after eleven, leaving them alone, Younker slipped out the jar.
“Not a bad catch,” he told Younker, eyeing the fat, sluggish flies.
“Two weeks of night duty in a row, I figured we deserved a bit of fun,” Younker replied. “Let’s go.”
They left the front office and unlocked the gate, passed through, then locked it tight again. They walked in the middle of the corridor so none of the patients in the barred cells could get in a good grab. Some of them knew how to gum out their meds and play ‘possum at night, waiting for the right time to lash out a fumbling hand or tripping leg. And that, Cavell knew, was sometimes all it took. Walking the patient halls always made him nervous. He was a thin man, tall but not strong. Younker, on the other hand, was a massive slab of rough muscle, which came in handy at Rose Asylum. Cavell always appreciated his presence.
They stopped at Ms. Burgett’s cell. It was secured by bullet-proof glass, not bars. Cavell turned up the lights, and the cell went from dark to dim. Ms. Burgett hated light; anything stronger than a forty-watt bulb sent her into a frenzy. She was also allergic to most sedatives, so following Dr. Peterson’s orders they did their best to accommodate her in small ways.
The room’s contents—a bed, toilet, rounded plastic
desk, and several badly mangled sketchbooks—gained definition.
“Where’s her latest creation?” Cavell asked. “It was getting big.”
“Dr. Peterson had Delaney take it out earlier this afternoon. Said it was getting too difficult to move around in there with all that yarn.”
Cavell was always impressed by Ms. Burgett’s sheer, inexhaustible creative drive when it came to yarn. Dr. Peterson only allowed yarn that would come apart easily—in case Ms. Burgett ever got an urge to hang herself. If she acted up, Dr. Peterson removed the yarn immediately, but good behavior resulted in several bolts, all gray like she liked. Ms. Burgett would then immediately set to it with her fingers and teeth, prodding, pulling, licking, winding, separating each strand and stretching it from bed spring to desk, toilet to shelf. The more yarn she was given, the more docile she became. Sometimes she spent whole days sitting in the middle of her creation, weaving more, until Dr. Peterson decided it had grown too big, too unhygienic, and had it cleaned out. Then Ms. Burgett, after the inevitable violent fit, would begin again when given another bolt.
“Can’t see her,” Younker grunted. “Under the bed again, I guess.”
Cavell knew Ms. Burgett got cranky as hell when her cell was bare. She often took to hiding under her bed with the sulks. There was one sure-fire way to get her out, though, and Cavell knew what it was. He scratched lightly on the Plexiglas with a fingernail, and Younker held the jar of flies up to the tray slot.
Ms. Burgett moved like lightning. Still pressed flat to the floor, she scuttled out from under the bed, completely naked, and covered the ten feet to the flies in an instant, still on all fours. Then, with a sudden lunge, she slammed herself against the glass, clawing at it with three-inch fingernails, licking at it with her bright red tongue, biting at it with filed-sharp teeth. Clicking noises came from the back of her throat. They hardly sounded human.
Cavell recoiled. He would never grow used to Ms. Burgett’s appearance, and certainly not to her mannerisms. He shuddered to think the woman had once been free.
“Down,” said Younker.
Ms. Burgett immediately fell back in a splayed crouch. She scuttled sideways a few feet, never taking her wide eyes off the jar.
Satisfied, Younker unscrewed the lid and held the open mouth to the tray slot. The flies quickly filled the cell, and Ms. Burgett went to work. The clicking rose in pitch and frequency as she scampered around the chamber, still on all fours, ropes of drool running down her chin as she gnashed her teeth and, methodically, efficiently, caught her prey and dined.
Younker chuckled. “By God, our Black Widow’s a little Renfield, isn’t she?”
Cavell, stopwatch in hand, couldn’t help but shiver as he smiled.
* * * * *
Like so many cases of criminal insanity, it was the smell that cost Ms. Burgett her freedom.
Cavell had seen her case file only once, and briefly at that, but had heard rumors in far greater detail: How the police had entered her apartment after neighbors reported the stench of rotting flesh emanating from beneath the door. How they had found three dogs, five cats, a dozen rabbits, and a seventy-five-year-old man wrapped up in fishing line, all hanging from the ceiling and quite dead. How Ms. Burgett had descended from a dense web of fishing line on a rope cord tied around her waist and attacked the officers with her sharpened teeth and nails. How her apartment was filled with a vast, moving carpet of tiny spiders, filling the cabinets, the washing machine, the toilets, the closets, and running rampant across the floors, walls and ceilings…
“Psychotic Monomania resulting in Schizophrenic Arachnophilia,” was how Dr. Peterson offhandedly summarized Ms. Burgett’s condition.
“Black Widow,” was how the attendants described her.
After settling back into the office once they finished the rest of their rounds, Younker shook his head and whistled. “I finally got a good look at the Black Widow’s fingers,” he said.
Cavell had pulled out a report sheet and was starting to fill it out. A patient had vomited twice earlier that night, and Dr. Peterson and the morning nurses needed to be aware of it. “Hmm? What about them?”
“No prints,” he replied. “I heard about that, but wanted to see for myself. They’re smooth. Same with her feet and toes. Doctors think she sanded them off at some point, before she got caught.”
“Jesus! Why?”
Younker shrugged and swung his feet up onto the desk, which creaked beneath the weight. “Why not? The chick’s a loony. Anyway, that’s why she’s never been positively ID’d.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“Sure. Peterson thinks she did it cause it was a way of ‘further distancing herself from her human identity,’ or something like that.”
Cavell knew ‘Ms. Burgett’ wasn’t the Black Widow’s real name. She’d used it while in residence at the apartment building where she’d been caught, but beyond that the name had no apparent significance. The identification card the police recovered was false, and there were no credit cards, Blockbuster memberships, or telephone calls to provide further clues or leads. An intensive and extensive national records search had turned up nothing. If, like Dr. Peterson suggested, she had wanted to remove herself from the workings of human civilization, in that respect, if in no other, she had succeeded.
“Next time,” Younker mused, “I think I’m gonna make her jump through a hoop for those flies.”
“She won’t listen,” Cavell said, turning back to his report. “She doesn’t play games for anyone.”
“Even spiders can be trained.” Younker yawned, flicked on the desk radio, and settled down for a quick nap.
* * * * *
“Hey, how long’s it been since we last fed the Widow from the jar?”
For Cavell, time passed strangely in Rose Asylum. The redundancy and tedium of routine was largely to blame, but not entirely. The strangeness of the asylum’s occupants: that played a part, too. News had no meaning inside. When he and Younker spoke of current events while on shift, the subjects seemed vague and distant. It was hard to speak of hockey games and presidential policy when people down the hall were screaming about bugs under their skin or how they intended to consume their parents. A day sometimes felt like a week, a week a month, a month a day.
“I don’t know,” Cavell replied. “Two weeks? Maybe less? I’m not sure.”
Younker yawned. It was just after three in the morning. “Well, I thought we might have another go. I’m getting bored.”
“Flies again?”
Younker smiled. “Nope. Check this out.” He reached into his backpack and pulled out the familiar jar. But inside…
Cavell blinked. “Fireflies?”
“Easier to get this time of year.”
Cavell wasn’t sure how much fun fireflies would be. “It’ll be over pretty quick,” he said. “They’ll probably just walk along the walls.”
“Come on, let’s go,” Younker growled. “It’s better than nothing.”
This time, Ms. Burgett wasn’t under her bed. Dr. Peterson had recently given her three bolts of yarn for good behavior, so she was now sitting secure in the middle of a great, connected mesh of damp fabric.
“Looky here, Black Widow,” Younker said, waving the jar.
Ms. Burgett flexed, still in a crouch, then pounced against the window with a hiss.
Younker put the jar behind his back. He glanced at Cavell. “Let’s see if we can make her dance a little.”
Cavell looked at Younker uncertainly. “We shouldn’t rile her up. You know she doesn’t listen to anything but ‘down.’”
“Oh, c’mon, it’ll be fun.” Younker returned his attention to Ms. Burgett. “Here now, spin a little for me.” He twirled his finger in front of her face. “Spin round, little spider, spin round.”
Ms. Burgett sneered at Younker, but kept an eye on the jar. She clicked and hissed and raked the glass with her nails, but Younker kept twirling his finger.
Cavell doubted she would li
sten even if she could understand…but then Ms. Burgett surprised him. Scowling, she suddenly crawled in a quick circle and hunkered down by the window, submissive but still clicking rapidly. Her eyes now never left Younker.
“There, you see? She learns fast.” Younker flashed a grin at Ms. Burgett and unscrewed the lid of the jar. Carefully, he knocked the fireflies into the tray slot and stepped back to watch.
Ms. Burgett pounced. She took two immediately, one in each hand, slammed them into her mouth, and scurried back to the center of her nest. She chewed with gusto, grinning in a way that made Cavell want to lock himself back in the office, safe until the morning crew arrived.
“Look at that smile,” said Younker. “She couldn’t be happier.”
Yes she could, Cavell thought. From all accounts she seemed pretty damned happy in her old apartment, when the prey was bigger.
And then, abruptly, Ms. Burgett stopped chewing. Her eyes became white saucers. Her lips, glowing dully with stains of fading luminescence, drew together in a tight, bloodless line.
“Younker?” Cavell stepped back.
Ms. Burgett took a long, deep breath.
Younker frowned. “Hey, what’s her problem?”
The ensuing shriek was so loud Cavell and Younker called out and clapped their hands to their ears. Immediately the other patients, ripped from slumber, began to moan and cry.
“Now you’ve done it,” Cavell said. “Come on.”
But Younker was still staring at Ms. Burgett, entranced. Shrieking and hissing, she flailed at the glass, scrabbling at it in mad fury. She fell back, ripping at her tangled black hair. Blood spilled from her mouth; she had bitten into her tongue and lips with her filed teeth.
“Get the jar and let’s go,” Cavell said. “We have to let her calm down, and she won’t with us here.”
“Fine,” said Younker. “Jesus, look at her.”
“I already did. Let’s go.”
Scaring the Crows Page 6
