by Alden Nowlan
“Now, come on, Scampi! I’ll teach you!”
Surrendering to her, beginning to enjoy himself, he brought his feet together, then swung them apart, as she directed. They danced through the house, in and out of his parents’ bedroom, across the hall, into his room and back again to the kitchen. She did not let him stop until they were both of them giggling and breathless.
And through it all, she hummed a wordless little tune. This was the music, she said, and he must learn to feel it in his shoulders and hips and legs. At dances, the music was provided by guitars, fiddles, and mandolins. Once she had attended a dance where a blind man had played an accordion and a mouth organ at the same time.
“Oh, Scampi, you’ll learn in no time at all. You really will! Someday you’ll dance just like your uncle Kaye!” She smiled. “Kaye goes out into the middle of the floor and step dances. He kicks off his boots and dances in his socks! Oh, you should see him, Scampi. All of my people — every one of them — were dancers . . .” Her voice trailed away.
Grandmother O’Brien said that dancing was sinful. Salome, dancing before Herod the King, had demanded the head of John the Baptist. John the Baptist, Grandmother O’Brien said, had founded the Baptist Church. Ever since his death, the Baptist Church had condemned dancing.
“There ain’t no greater wickedness, boy,” she said darkly. “Men and women pressin’ belly tuh belly and hoppin’ up and down tuh devilish music! Terrible, bad, wicked things come of dancin’, boy. Why, the devil hisself sometimes shows up at dances!”
“Gee whiz!”
“Yes, the devil hisself! It’s the God’s truth, boy. Why, I remember my own mother tellin’ me about a time right here in this very settlement. There was a girl lived here, a girl name of Hutchinson, I do believe — and that girl loved dancin’. Rain or shine, she never missed a dance. Well, boy, one night there was a dance in the school house and about half-way through the evenin’ a stranger walked in. He was black as a gypsy, Mother said, and his suit was as black as coal. And that girl that loved dancin’ so much shared every dance with him! Nobody had ever seen anybody dance the way them two danced that night! They waltzed and they jigged and they clogged. They danced long after everybody else stopped dancin’ — and still that stranger wouldn’t let her stop. He made that girl dance until her feet bled and the blood ran down ontuh the floor! Well, boy, some of the men had a mind tuh stop it — and, yuh know what? — they was froze in their chairs! Yessir, they was froze in their chairs! They couldn’t wiggle a finger. And the stranger and the girl kept a-dancin’. The fiddler laid his fiddle down — and, glory! That fiddle kept a-fiddlin’ all by itself on a chair! There weren’t no human hand nowhere near that fiddle bow but it kept a-playin’. Why, Mother said she never in her life heard a fiddler play like that fiddle played. And that stranger kept that girl a-dancin’ until daybreak! After he left the people got up and looked at that girl and yuh know what they found, boy? Yuh know what they found?” Her voice became a high, quivering whisper. “Well, boy, they found two terrible big burns on her back where the stranger’s hands had touched her, and — listen tuh this, boy! — there was a smell of brimstone in the room!”
Kevin thought of his mother dancing belly to belly with a gypsy-faced man in a coal black suit. The thought made him look over his shoulder and shiver.
For Mary went to dances now. June Larlee would come for her, and as his mother led him to bed, Kevin would look back and see June slouching in the chair by the window, making a ribbon of her chewing gum and running it in and out of her mouth. Sometimes, she would pull up her dress and scratch at her legs where her tight rubber garters had made them itch.
“’Nighty-night, Scampi,” she would call. And his hatred for her would rise in his throat like gall.
In putting him to bed before she left for a dance, Mary gave him even more caresses and endearments than usual. But he knew it was a sham.
She was abandoning him. Every kiss was a swindle and a betrayal. A million kisses would not have assuaged his anger and hurt. Stroking his cheek as she sat in the chair by his pillow, she sang to him:
I see a fireplace, a cosy room . . .
A little nest that nestles where the roses bloom.
Just Mollie and me, and baby makes three,
Are hurried to my blue heaven . . .
He wished he could contract a mortal illness — some horrible, incurable disease like the leprosy mentioned in the Bible. She would be sorry then! He saw himself on his deathbed. A doctor in a white smock stood at the foot of the bed. His parents knelt on the floor, gazing tearfully at his face; on his cheeks there was an angelic pallor like that on the cheeks of Eva St. Clair. It was dusk, and the room smelled of flowers.
The doctor wiped a tear from his eye.
“Mrs. O’Brien, be brave; your son is dying.”
Mary buried her face in his quilts and wailed.
“Oh, no, doctor! No! No! No! It isn’t true! Say it isn’t true, doctor! Please, say it isn’t true!”
“Alas,” said the doctor, blowing his nose and again wiping his eyes. “Alas, it is too true.”
“Oh, Scampi,” she moaned. “Oh, I’m so sorry, Scampi! I’m so sorry for the terrible way I left you alone and went to dances. If you get better I promise I won’t ever do it again. I promise, Scampi!”
Sobbing piteously, she pleaded with him.
A gentle smile touched his death-white lips as he whispered — “What’s wrong, Scamper?”
“Huh?”
“You were a million miles away.”
“Oh, I guess I’m just sleepy,” he said sulkily.
“Oh, my! You look fierce, Scamp. You aren’t mad at me are you, sweetikins?”
“No. I ain’t mad.”
She was a fool. He wished she would go away.
“That’s my baby.” She bent down to kiss him.
“Ummmmmmmmmmm-eh!” He turned away his head.
Taking the lamp, she started toward the door.
“Goodnight, sweetikins!”
“’Night.”
Purposely, he closed his eyes before she left the room, spurning her.
And she didn’t even notice that I didn’t want her to go! he reflected. The big fool! A fat lot she cares for me! Sweetikins — horse chestnuts. The big fool!
He lay in the dark and listened, hearing first the small, comforting sounds of her moving about in the kitchen and, a little later, the harsh, conclusive sounds of her steps on the porch.
She was singing again. Her voice came faintly from the dooryard, fading into silence as she and June walked away from the house:
Put me in your pocket
And I’ ll go along with you,
No more will I be lonesome
And no more will I be blue . . .
“Oh, Mummy. Oh, Mummy . . . please don’t leave me,” he whispered.
Thirteen
In almost every night of waiting for his mother — and when she was away from home, there was not a moment in which he was not waiting for her to return — Kevin crawled out of bed and stumbled, stupid with sleep, through the darkness to his father. Until Mary got home, Judd lay on the cot in the kitchen, on the straw-filled tick, with an old coat under his head, an army blanket pulled over his shoulders. No words were exchanged when Kevin climbed up beside him. The kerosene lamp, with its wick turned low, glowed like a single red coal. The green mill-wood, smouldering in the stove, crackled and sizzled. Wind wailed on the telephone wires and moaned in the rose bushes under the northern window. The smell of Judd’s body was compounded of sweat, tobacco, sawdust, and leather. It made Kevin think of the sharp, good odour of ploughed earth, the aroma of onions and horse droppings.
Kevin lay still, fearful of annoying his father. The man’s body was adamant, impenetrable. It was like rocky earth in comparison with the yielding, creek-water body of his mother. The Bible said that man had been created from the dust of the earth and that woman had been made from man’s bone. Kevin wondered if this could be a
mistake. Surely, his father had been created from stone, chiselled from a boulder like those that stood in the west pasture, and his mother — his mother had sprung from water, risen from the white foam.
He stirred only when the ache in his calves became unbearable. Each time he moved, the man beside him grunted. So he postponed the moment of moving until immobility became torture. Yet even this was preferable to the loneliness of his own room.
His eyes were open, and the darkness in the corners, by the woodbox, under the sink, beneath the table, might have been the shadows of vampires and werewolves. At times like this, he believed in malevolent, occult things. The vampire pushed away the lid of its coffin and rose from the grave — a black Christ, an Antichrist, rising from its sepulchre. Werewolves could be identified by the hair growing on the palms of their hands. The thought made his own hand itch. Secretly, he rubbed his knuckles against his palm . . .
A vampire could not be seen in a mirror. And vampires and werewolves could be killed only with silver bullets. But if one made the sign of the cross and cried, “In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost!” these monstrosities would cower and disappear. He shaped the words soundlessly, so that his father would not hear. “In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.” But if he came face to face with a vampire his lips might be paralyzed with fear!
Were there vampires in the Lockhartville cemetery? Was one of these monsters even now placing hairy palms against the inside of a coffin lid? Was something with red, dripping fangs even now crouching under the window?
In spite of himself, he found his eyes turning toward the window. No! He did not wish to look! But his head moved with a will of its own. In another second he would be looking at the glass and then he would see —
“What in hell’s the matter with yuh, Kev?”
“Huh?”
“What in hell’s the matter with yuh? Why in hell can’t yuh lay still for a minute?”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Nothin’s the matter,” Kevin whispered.
He closed his eyes.
But what of the thing in the cellar that drinks so much blood?
From where had this thought come? It was as though something evil and invisible were whispering at his ear.
But what of the thing in the cellar that drinks so much blood?
He put his hands over his ears. But he could not shut out the whisper.
But what of the thing in the cellar that drinks so much blood?
In an attempt to exorcise the voice, he began a mental catalogue of all the sane, substantial things in this room.
On the shelf between the pantry door and the door to the living room: an alarm clock, a box of household matches, three cuds of chewing tobacco, scissors, spools of white and black thread, a bottle of iodine, and a jar of the salve that his mother rubbed on his chest and throat when he had a cold.
But what of the thing in the cellar that drinks so much blood?
On the green frame of the pantry door: shamrock-shaped tin tags from chewing tobacco, shaping the letter K. Long ago, his father had driven the tags into the wood with a hammer. On the shelf above the cot: mail-order catalogues, the wooden box in which his father kept bills and lawyers’ letters, felt inner-soles for Judd’s gum rubbers, a stack of love story magazines, school books, his water colours, a broken cap pistol.
But what of the thing in the cellar that drinks so much blood?
On the shelf above the woodbox: three of the bricks which his grandmother heated and held against her belly, a jar of stove polish and a sooty-black rag, his father’s leather work mitts, a hunting knife, a jar of shingle nails, a claw hammer.
But what of the thing in the cellar that drinks so much blood?
In the cabinet over the sink: yellow, ammoniac laundry soap, white, lily-scented toilet soap, his father’s shaving brush and razor, pills for toothache and earache, ointments for cuts, Epsom salts, sulphur, witch hazel.
But what of the thing in the cellar that drinks so much blood?
On the pole hanging over the stove: towels, dish cloths, face cloths, all made from rags or flour bags, a pair of his denim shorts and one of his father’s cotton shirts which his mother had washed that day . . .
He awoke with a jerk. He did not know if he had slept for only a second or for hours. Knowing that his father never slept during these nights of waiting, he felt rebuked. He listened to the sounds of cars passing, watched their headlights flash across the walls.
On dance nights, many cars passed. Nearing the house, the sad night-sound of their motors rose in a crescendo of desolation and loss. Passing the lilac hedge, the sound subsided, as though the cars were being driven into a bottomless valley. Soon, there was only a hum, no louder than that of a mosquito. Then, there was no sound at all. Each time a car neared the house, Judd’s head rose a fraction of an inch from the pillow. When the car did not stop, his head sank down again.
Silently, Kevin counted the cars. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten. Each number was the undulating whine of a motor, a golden ghost of light streaking across ceiling and walls. Twenty . . . thirty . . . thirty-five . . . thirty-nine, forty . . .
In some of the cars, men were singing. In others, voices were raised in anger. Sometimes — not often — words were distinguishable.
Oh, there’s a love-knot in my lariat!
And I’m dreamin’ of my little prairie pet.
“Damn rat! Damn friggin’ pig. Damn stinkin’ louse!”
When I grow too old to dream
I’ ll have you to remember!
“I told the sonovabitch! I told the goddamn stinkin’ bastard!”
Sweet Adeline, my Adeline!
Each night, dear heart, for you I pine . . .
“Keep your hands to yourself, you stinkin’ —”
The songs were lively but sad, almost wistful.
They were the whistle of a locomotive in the night, the wind under the eaves, the wail of the telephone wires. The threats and curses were the speech of men who feared nothing, men who swaggered unafraid through the vampire-ridden night. Here were Harold Winthrop, Hod Rankin, and Av Farmer, grown to manhood. And Kevin both despised and envied them. Someday he would be a king and a vampire, while these men would never be anything more than turnip-heads and slab-carriers. And yet, if they could have chosen between his dream of kingship and their electric muscles and roaring bravado —
A car stopped. Thrusting Kevin aside, Judd rose and went to the window facing the road.
“Good night, beautiful!”
“Oh, you big silly!”
The first voice was the teasing, intimate voice of a man. The second voice, giddy with laughter, was that of Mary.
Judd doubled his fist and brought it down hard on his palm. “Ha,” he ejaculated, the sound midway between triumph and despair.
Kevin sat up. He decided to steal back to his room before his mother entered the kitchen.
“Stay there!”
“Huh?”
“Stay there, I told yuh!”
“Gee, sure, Daddy.”
Shivering, he drew the army blanket around his shoulders like a shawl.
The car hiccoughed into gear. He heard his mother’s footsteps, running up the path. She sounded as if she were walking on something breakable. Had he been blind he would have known her by her steps.
Judd went to the table and turned up the lamp. Kevin blinked in the sudden rush of brightness.
Mary threw open the door and swept into the room. Her hair was dishevelled, her body skittish with excitement.
Then she froze.
“Scampi! Why aren’t you in bed?”
Her words were like a slap.
“Gee, Mummy,” he stammered. “Gee whiz.”
Shoeless, his father stood in the centre of the floor. There was something evil in his eyes.
“He’s waitin’ fer yuh, same as he allus does,” he grated harshly.
Mary flung her coat on a cha
ir. “There isn’t any need for him to stay up! That’s all your idea! You want to shame me! You want to make him ashamed of his mother!”
“If yuh ain’t ashamed now, there ain’t nothin’ I’n do tuh shame yuh,” Judd said.
He emitted a terrible, unreal snicker.
“Come on, Scampi! You come to bed where you belong, right this minute!”
She seized his wrist and wrenched him to his feet.
“Gee, Mummy . . .”
“You come to bed!”
She led him back to his room, walking so fast that he had difficulty in keeping his footing. Her fingers were a vise, burning his wrist. The floor was cold and gritty under his bare feet.
Fourteen
“Don’t you want Mummy to be happy, Scampi?”
“Gee, sure, I want yuh tuh be happy.”
“Sometimes, I don’t believe anyone wants me to be happy. It seems like everybody in the world wanted to make Mary Dunbar O’Brien unhappy. Even you, Scampi! You don’t want Mummy to go to dances. But going to dances makes Mummy happy. Don’t you understand, Scamper?”
“Sure. I understand.”
“No. No. You don’t understand at all. You’re only a little boy. I shouldn’t even ask you to understand. I should stay home, if you want me to. I should stay in this old house all the time and rot. I should stay in it until I’m an old, old, old woman. That’s what you want me to do, Scamper?”
“No! Gosh, no, Mummy!”
“Yes, it is. You don’t even want me to go to a dance!”
“Gosh, no, I never said I didn’t want yuh tuh go tuh dances, Mummy.”
“You didn’t say it, mebbe. But I know you don’t want me to. As soon as I get out of the house you go running to your father. He doesn’t want me to go either. He wants me to sit in the kitchen until I rot. And as soon as I get out of the house you go running to him. You do that every time, Scampi!”
