Wizard of the Pigeons

by Megan Lindholm

  Gray light was pouring through the window, drenching the mattress, and tousled blankets and the cardboard and blanket from the window on the floor beside them. He stared out through the cracked pane at the dark silhouette of the building across the alley and the overcast sky above it. None of it was coming together. He groped vaguely after the tails of memories, but they scuttled back into corners. He pressed his palms to his eyes until two things came clear. He should phone home today.

  And check with the damn VA office again, to see if they’d straightened out the mess they’d made of his records.

  Temporal continuity ripped suddenly, spilling him from its sling into chaos. This was no cheap motel room. His pants were not slung across a chair under a cheap painting by a bureau with a Gideon bible on it. He sat up, staring around. His brain bounced sickeningly against the top of his skull. He must have gone drinking last night. He knew he had to quit soon. He eased back down onto the flat and stinking mattress. A gray pigeon took sudden alarm and swooped into the next room.

  From one corner of the room, a scrawny black cat regarded him with flat eyes. A damn zoo. A wave of stress rose in Mitchell, stressing his headache to the top of his skull. He was tired of mornings that started at the bottom. His whole body ached; his mouth tasted foul. Something very bad was going on here. He squeezed his eyes hard shut and tried to put his mind in order. What had he done yesterday? How had he gotten to today?

  All that came to mind was phoning home. The number loomed large in his mind, spurring him. He hadn’t called in a long time; he hated to call when all he could say was that he was still working on it. He had promised to get it all straightened out, once and for all. They were counting on him. He was going to make it right with all of them.

  There was a phone booth in the train station, with a decent chair in it. He had used it so often he had memorized the graffiti. He leaned into the privacy of the booth, telling the operator to make it collect. The ringing sounded very far away.

  He couldn’t identify the voice that said so softly, “Hello?”

  “Collect call from Mitch. Will you accept charges?”

  He heard wind blowing in the receiver, that was all; as if all the miles of wire between him and home were taking a long and steady breath. The operator repeated, “There is a collect call from Mitch. Will you accept charges?”

  “I… wait a minute. Yes, I will. Go ahead, operator.”

  “Hello?” His own voice was so cautious he hardly recognized it himself.

  “Mitch?”

  “Yeah. I woulda called sooner, but this is such a fucked up mess, every time I go in there—”

  “Mitch. Wait a minute. Listen to me, Mitch. Just a sec.”

  She took a ragged breath and he suddenly knew she was weeping. Weeping on the other end of the line. Why? “Look, I gotta say these things. You don’t want to hear them and I don’t want to say them, but I gotta say them now, on the phone, while you’re not looking at me. Listen.” She cleared her throat, but her voice still came out husky. “There’s a lot of things. There’s Benjy, for one. He’s back to sleeping all night again. He’s nearly back to how he was. He plays outside and his little friends come over again. And he seems so sunny and fine, it breaks my heart to think of how he was. He found one of his old plastic army men in the sandbox yesterday. He wouldn’t touch it. He made me come out and get it and wrap it in a paper towel and throw it inside the trash can for him. After we did that, he asked when you were coming back. I told him I didn’t know. He seemed worried by that, so I told him pretty soon. Then he got scared and wanted to sleep in my bed with the last night. Mitch, it’s too much for him. Too many blowups in front of him, too many weird-outs. Too many times of you going away and coming back fine for a month or two, and then a disaster. He’s just a little boy, and it’s too much for him. Do you know what I’m saying?”

  “Yeah.” The huskiness was in his voice now. “I do love him. You know I do. I love him and I love you and—”

  “Mitch. Don’t. Listen to me. We’ve had all our good times. I waited for you. And you came back a stranger, but I stuck with you. I really thought we could make it all better again. I waited through the dope, I waited through the booze, and when I thought we were finally safe and I could have our baby… Damn. You’ve been gone a while, and I can see things clearer. It isn’t going to get any better for us. And I can’t pretend anymore.”

  “No. Wait, please. I’ll come home tonight. I can get this mess straightened out later. Baby, I’ll come home tonight, we’ll get my folks to babysit, and we’ll go out and be alone together and talk. We can get it all talked out. And whatever you want me to do this time, I’ll do it. I promise you. Whatever you think will make it work, whatever will be best for us all. I promise.” He could hear her crying now, little gulping noises as she strangled for air. He needed so badly to touch her. His eyes stung.

  “You promise.”

  “Yeah. I swear it. Please.”

  “Mitch… then don’t come home. I won’t be here. I can’t be here anymore. You… you take care. I’m gonna drop your stuff off with your folks. They already know about it. I’m taking Benjy with me. Listen. I’m going to keep on loving you. I swear that. I always will. But I can’t live with you, not anymore. I can’t wait anymore for you to come back.”

  “I promise,” he said softly to the empty line. The electronic winds blew his words back to him.

  “I promise.” said the man in the beige shirt at the huge desk, “that we are doing everything we can to straighten this out. But we need your cooperation. Did you bring your records this time?”

  Mitchell set the document box on the desk beside the computer. The man looked at it with obvious relief. “Great. At last. Now we can get somewhere. Got your discharge papers?”

  “In here.” Mitchell tapped the cold box with his fingernail.

  He didn’t like the sound it made, like clods of dirt falling on a coffin. He stopped.

  “Let’s have them, then.”

  “I lost the damn key. You got something we can jimmy it open with?”

  The man at the desk looked disgusted again, and as tired as be had when Mitch had first come in. “No. That’s not my department. Look, take the box to a locksmith and get it open. We aren’t going to get anywhere without some papers to work from.”

  Mitch rubbed his head, hating the man, wishing he could take his bead and shove his face into his fucking little computer screen. He put his fists in his lap, out of the man’s sight. “Look. Please. Did you check on what I told you last week? Did you run down my name and serial number? I mean, listen, isn’t that what these little gizmos are for?” He tried to sound reasonable, admiring of the computer technology that had caused this whole fuckup.

  “Yes. And it came back the same. Mitchell Ignatius Reilly is listed as MIA. Missing in Action. He never came back from Viet Nam.”

  Mitchell’s fist hit the top of the desk in short, hard jolts, punctuating each syllable. “I am sitting right here. Ask my wife. Ask my folks.” The man’s face went red and white. He began to rise. Mitchell hid his fists again. “Look. I’m sorry I did that. I know you’re doing the best you can. Hey, did you check on that other thing I told you?”

  The man settled back in his chair and looked at him in blank weariness. Mitchell wanted to punch his civil service mouth, to make him care. He controlled himself. He mastered it and held it down and strangled the impulse. He was in control of himself.

  “You know. There was a guy in my company, shipped over with me, Michael Ignace O’Reilly. Weirdest damn thing. His serial number was within a couple digits of mine, they were always getting us mixed up, trying to give him my mail, that kind of shit. I shipped stateside before he did. Maybe he’s the one MIA.”

  “Him.” The man at the desk looked harassed. “I’d almost forgotten why I ran a check on him. It didn’t help. He’s not MIA, he came out in a plastic bag.”

  Cold panic squeezed Mitchell. “What? What are you trying to tell m
e, that I got a choice between MIA and dead? Look at me. I’m here, man. Take my fingerprints if you want. The Army has mine on record, I know. That’ll prove I’m me. Go ahead, take them.”

  “Look.” For the first time, an edge of anger crept into the man’s voice. “I know you want help. I’ll even say that I can see you need help. But before we go to extremes like fingerprints, why don’t we do what’s simple? Go get that damn box opened! Get those papers to me and I’ll have a fighting chance of getting this straightened out. Until then, I’m going to tell you to quit coming here. Every week I ask for your papers, and every week you have a different line. I can’t do a damn thing without some papers. Give me a birth certificate, discharge papers, anything. Just go get those damn papers for me, or don’t come back. Look, man, why don’t you go to the state? There’s a lot of agencies for people like you. They can help you. You need to get some help!”

  The man stood up to call the words after him, but he didn’t stop. He beat it out of there, leaving it all behind. MIA or dead. Great choice. Dammit, he was here, he was alive, he hadn’t changed, but no one would accept him, not his wife, not the VA, he had no one. No one cared enough to help.

  “Dad?”

  “Mitch? That you, son? You still up in Seattle?”

  “Yeah, Dad. Dad, I’m having a hell of a time. Nothing is going right.”

  “Well, you just stick with it. You’ll get it all straightened out. I’d call Mother to the phone, but she’s gone to get her hair done. Mary dropped some boxes here. You know about that?”

  “Yeah. Yeah, she told me. Dad, what am I going to do? I’m losing it all.”

  “Son, you just stay right there until you get it all sorted out. I’m sure you’ll be just fine. Say, did you catch the game last night? Did you believe that last play? Who would call a play like that? If I were the owner of that team, I’d take that coach and—”

  “Dad! Dad, listen to me. I want to come home. I got to come home. Can you wire me some money?”

  “Well, Mitch, I just don’t think that’s a good idea. Now, look, there’s no sense in running away from this thing. You’re up there, you may as well get it all sorted out before you come home. You know you brought this on yourself, acting so wild. If you hadn’t punched out those guys in the local office, maybe they could have cleared it up for you here. But as it is, you’ve got them all stirred up and they aren’t going to do a thing for you. So you got to go through the Seattle office. You just tough it out and I’m sure you’ll be all right.”

  “Yeah. Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

  “I know I am. Now Mitch, I’m not going to tell Mother you called. This thing with Mary has her flying around the ceiling as it is, and she’d just get all upset all over again. So I want you to sit down and write her a nice note tonight and mail it off to her. She’s been upset enough about Mary taking little Benjy away, and her stomach is acting up, so don’t write anything that will get her worked up. Okay?”

  “Is she going to be all right?”

  “Yes, she’s going to be fine, as long as she stays calm. Don’t you give her any more reasons to be crying over you. Now, you do like I told you, and get better, and then you give me a call and let me know when you’re coming home. I know things look pretty dark right now, but you’ve got to untangle them one knot at a time. Take care of the VA mess, get the help you need, and when you get finished with that, we can worry about what’s next.”

  “Yeah. Dad? Dad, I’ve got to talk to you. When I called Mary—”

  “Son, I’d love to talk with you about that, but I can’t. Phone bill has been crazy with you always calling collect. I shouldn’t have accepted this one. So I’ve got to hang up now. Remember what I said. Take the problems one at a time. Get straight with the VA and get some help. Then we can worry about Mary and the rest of it. I got to go now. You write your mom a nice note tonight, okay?”

  “Yeah. Dad?”

  “Good-bye, Son.”

  The bright sunlight through the window woke Wizard. Even in his sleep, it had been making his eyes water. He rolled silently from his bed, cursing the hangover and the weariness that had made him sleep in. He surveyed the damage. The den was a wreck. He dressed slowly, in silence, trying to move his head as little as possible. He wanted to lie down again, but forced himself to set his room to rights. He walked very carefully, setting his feet where the floorboards creaked the least.

  Black Thomas watched him as he shook and smoothed the blankets. They smelled like Lynda. She had left her mark everywhere. Thomas noticed it when he came over to lie on the mattress. He sniffed and growled softly before he settled. his raw stump hovering away from his body. When he had arranged himself. Wizard lowered himself carefully beside the cat and inspected the wound.

  “Looks like it will heal, my friend.” Wizard touched it with his eyes only, moving his pounding head to see it from all angles. “That was a foolish move you made, and I’m afraid you’ve paid dearly for it.”

  Black Thomas opened his red mouth wide in a meow of disdain. Wizard was forced to nod, humiliated. “I didn’t say you were the only one who did stupid things. I’ll have to pay for mine as well. I’ve got to find Cassie today. I’ve got to get this whole mess straightened out.”

  Moving with ponderous care, he tidied the rest of the room, taking no satisfaction in it. There was more shabbiness than he had ever noticed before. What Lynda’s eyes had touched seemed to have changed overnight. The coziness of his retreat had turned to squalor, the privacy to isolation. He picked up the little pipe from the floor and dropped it into the footlocker on top of the bag of weed. He stared for a long time at the other things she had stacked on the floor. Daylight made them all real. Finally he brought himself to touch them, to stack them back inside the footlocker. But when he tried to drop the lid, he found the hinges racked. There was no shutting them away anymore.

  He ate bread sticks and packages of crackers from his food supply. He thought of a cup of hot sweet coffee to wash them down. His hangover vetoed it. Why had he gone drinking with her? How could he have ever forgotten what the mornings after were inevitably like? He straightened the books on his shelves, moving always with a sleepy caution. He shook and refolded his clothes. He set the wizard bag carefully atop the folded garments, not daring to look inside the bag. He had betrayed them. He wouldn’t look at them and wonder what he had lost.

  When he had done and redone his small chores, he lay down on his mattress by the cat and stared around his tiny room. The pigeons had all left for the day. This time of year no young ones shrilled from the nests. No babies to handle, no setting parents to feed. The well worn paperbacks on the shelves were stale. He flipped through a Zane Grey, remembering every line of dialogue. It wouldn’t do. He rolled over, staring out the sunstricken window. That was one thing he hadn’t done yet. He didn’t think it prudent to take up his cardboard and blanket again. Not yet. Wait until night when movement in a darkened upper story would not be noticed. He wondered vaguely why Lynda had taken them down. Or if she had. It must have happened after he passed out.

  His body stank. Sitting still, trying not to think, he became aware of his own smell. Cleaning up was something to do, a chore to keep his mind busy. There was fresh rainwater in the coffee can on the fire escape. He scanned the alley before reaching out the window for it. He made a ritual out of his sponge bath, occupying himself with it for as long as he could.

  He heated the water over his Sterno can and slowly sponged his body as he shivered standing on a threadbare towel. He was thinner than he remembered being. He rubbed at a spot on his chest for some moments before recognizing the hickey she had left. He re-dressed slowly.

  The events of the night before came back to him slowly, as elusive as last week’s fragmentary dreams. He moved back through them slowly, flinching at every stop. But when he came to the image of Booth crumpling down the wall, it was more than he could stand. He rose to pace his room with catsoft steps. Twice he went to the window. On the mi
ld trip, he took his boots with him. He surveyed the alley, then slid up the window and stepped out onto the fire escape. Black Thomas raised a sleepy head from where he sunbathed on the mattress.

  He gave a warning growl and lay back to sleep.

  Wizard had given up all pretense at blending. Shaving in the mirrors of the stainless steel restroom near the fire station was something he did for his own comfort. He still didn’t recognize the man in the mirror. He wondered what to do with himself today. He refused to try buying coffee again. He could no longer feed the pigeons. If he went to Occidental Park, Lynda would find him. At the market he would have to face Euripides, at the Seattle Center he would have to deal with Rasputin. For long moments it seemed as if his future was made up solely of the things he could not do. Then he thought of the Waterfall Gardens.

  It was just across the street. It was a walled and private place, an oasis of shade trees and flowing water in the middle of the city. This time of year, it was usually empty. The gardens were a tiny, waited-off area, no larger than a vacant building site. In summer, people enjoyed its cool shade and the rising mist off the splashing water. In Seattle’s winter, shade and rising mist were in the public domain. No one went seeking them. Wizard sat at a little round table, watching the running water and trying to comfort himself with facts. The park was a memorial to the original headquarters of the United Parcel Service, which had been built on this site in 1907, convenient to Occidental Avenue and the whorehouses. That was how it had begun, with a handful of messengers whose chief customers were the brothels. He tried to picture it, and smiled vaguely at the running water.

  “Does every little thing have to be spelled out for you?”

  Wizard jumped at the woman’s voice and spun, expecting to find Lynda rampant. Instead, it was a stout little black woman, her hair lacquered into an unnatural set of waves. Her dress was too long, but her very old shoes were well cared for. She had on a blue cloth coat, not long enough to cover her dress.