Black Rabbit and Other Stories

by Salvatore Difalco

  Darcy too was busy. Larry observed him one day in a schoolyard beating a skinny kid senseless then taking his Blue Jays cap. When the cap didn’t fit his big head, Darcy threw it down and stomped on it. Larry wanted to do something but was afraid that Bam-Bam might come around. The beaten kid got up, badly shaken and bleeding from the nostrils. He retrieved his battered cap, then turned on a smaller child standing there watching. Larry walked home. He had a bigger bedroom now. He spent a lot of time in there thinking, weighing things in his mind. A room. That’s all it was, then, a room. He could do three years.

  Bam-Bam must have been inside again. Darcy was spotted roaming around alone. His mother, a stripper, lived in a nice little house near the canal, prim and clean, with a white picket fence and a rose garden. You wouldn’t think a peeler would live like a schoolteacher. Darcy tried to burn down his mother’s house once, on Bam-Bam’s orders, so he wasn’t exactly welcome there. Darcy was up for trial soon—he’d be going in for a long stretch. He said he could do it. No one would fuck with him inside. Everyone knew Bam-Bam. He used to ride with Hells Angels, he used to be a hit man for the mob. He was a crackhead now, but that made him even more dangerous. On his own, Darcy was nothing. He probably wanted to live a quieter life, but it was too late for that.

  And it went down like this one night, not far from Duffy’s Billiards—Hey, Darcy. Even though the voice expressed cheer and frankness, Darcy cautiously turned around. His eyes widened when he saw the cast coming for his face. He dropped to the ground with his forehead cracked. Larry fell on top of him. He beat Darcy with the cast and his good hand until his face turned pulpy and he stopped moving. Then Larry sprang to his feet and raised his throbbing hands in the air. Blood dripped off his elbows. What, Darcy? he shouted. What? He kicked the body, just visible in the dim alley. He kicked again. Then he went through Darcy’s pockets, pulling out two hundred dollars or so in twenties and a baggie of crack cocaine. He threw the cocaine into the gutter. As he walked away, he thought he heard Darcy groan. He stopped and looked over his shoulder, but Darcy wasn’t moving or making any sounds.

  Bam-Bam went inside for putting an off-duty cop into a coma. Bam-Bam would later die in his cell, allegedly from self-inflicted head trauma. Larry followed Miguel’s advice and reflected on his crime—but no matter how he tried to humanize Darcy, he failed to draw a drop of remorse from his heart. He even tried to imagine his stripper-mother bawling her eyes out. But Darcy would have probably given her more grief had he lived. He was a chip off the old block, a growing menace to society. The three years went by as well as they could have. Larry suffered, but he came to know himself better. He read the classics, built up a fine physique. He even learned some French. He planned to attend university when he got out and study journalism, or law, he wasn’t sure yet. His mother never came to visit him, but Jean-Guy showed up one day with a tin of cashews and some magazines. He didn’t have much to say, only that he was leaving her, she was back on the blow, and this didn’t surprise Larry. Despite everything, he felt strangely happy near the end of his term.

  He rarely thought of Darcy, except when it got damp and his hands ached.

  The Fishhouse

  I killed the headlights of my black Cadillac as I inched down the dead-end to Tommy Sardo’s place on the wharf. I could barely see a thing, most of the streetlights blown out or busted except for a small blue lamp shining at the end of the pier. Tommy lived in a converted fishhouse, a soulless and impersonal edifice, the windows uncurtained, the glass sheathed with filth. A dark blue van sat near the entrance, manned by a guy in a Maple Leafs sweater. His face looked encased in pale blue hosiery. He ignored me—or maybe he was sleeping with his eyes open. Maybe he was dead.

  I parked in front of the van and put on my black leather gloves, pressing them slowly down between the fingers as I checked myself in my rearview mirror. My eyes looked bloodshot. I took out my drops and applied a few to each eye. That helped. I climbed out of the car. Debris littered the street: crushed cans, broken bottles, fluttering plastic bags. A mangy dog came trotting by, ears pinned back, a fugitive look in its eyes, and hurried down the street, abruptly veering off into a dark alley. Against a wire fence leaned a discarded clothes rack, a dress of pink taffeta still clinging to its bar, an eye-catching garment.

  “I’d like to try on that dress,” I said in a falsetto. “The pink one.”

  “Oh, what a beauty. It happens to be a size . . .”

  I wondered if someone was watching me through a peephole. I stepped toward the van, and the fellow inside it remained motionless. I went around to the driver’s window and tapped on the glass with my car key. Nothing, even though his eyes looked open, or his John Lennon glasses created this illusion. Then I could see from the steady rise and fall of his chest and the drooling mouth that he was sleeping. I tapped harder on the glass. Nothing. I went around the van to the fishhouse entrance, a frame of heavy, water-logged timbers. I walked up to the door, a thick wooden number with an opaque portal window. I searched for a doorbell but didn’t see one. When I knocked on the door, no sound issued. I neared my nose to the glass and opened my eyes wide but saw only vague shapes moving around in the interior’s yellow half-light.

  “Tommy!” I shouted. “Tommy!”

  I waited a second, then stepped back and glanced up at the windows. I cupped my mouth with my hands and shouted Tommy’s name again. A frog in my throat spiked my voice to a pitchy screech. Pathetic, I must have sounded pathetic. I cleared my throat and retried, keeping in mind what I represented. No one came to the windows. For all I knew Tommy wasn’t around. I felt foolish standing there. The damp cold chilled my bones; I clenched my stomach muscles to keep from shivering like a child. I had on my khaki trench coat, a handsome garment, but one unsuited for the damp. I’d have worn my black leather coat had it not been ruined the week before during a messy operation. The mark in question bore a resemblance to a siphonophore, his face a swollen sac of cysts, his hair like jellied tentacles.

  Something thudded behind the great door. Then it slowly started opening. I braced myself. When it opened fully I saw a piston-like device attached to the doorknob, maybe an automatic opener of a design unfamiliar to me, industrial in sturdiness and power, perhaps necessary to move such a heavy door.

  A small bald man in a tight black suit appeared in the doorway, sallow, serious. In addition to the clean, smooth head, the man lacked eyebrows and lashes, giving him a peeled or parboiled look. A crimson pouf flared out from his breast pocket. His tiny black shoes shone as though they had just been polished. He stared at me with large, moist black eyes.

  “Where’s Tommy?”

  The little man blinked once. “Who’s asking?”

  “Tell him it’s Charlie.”

  “Charlie who?”

  “Charlie Bacala.”

  “You’re Charlie Bacala?”

  “That’s right. Tell him I want to see him.”

  “What’s the nature of your business?”

  “That’s between Tommy and me.”

  The little man smiled and leaned forward, looking at me with the tops of his eyes. “Tommy’s not taking any visitors at this time. Maybe you’d like to schedule an appointment.” He pulled out a small black book, licked his thumb and flipped through it. “Sorry,” he said. “But Tommy’s booked solid till next month.”

  Funny, I thought. Amusing. “Just tell Tommy I want a word.”

  “You don’t listen too good, do you?”

  “Tell Tommy what I said.”

  The little man sniffed and thought about it for a minute. Then he pushed a red button on the wall that released a whoosh of hydraulic pressure; a noise of sucking water commenced, and the door slowly shut.

  I wondered how long this would take. I had tried to contact Tommy previously with no luck. He was a man of mystery, difficult to pin down. It took some serious arm-twisting and palm-greasing to gather any information about him, truly testing my resolve. After months of probing, my sources deter
mined that Tommy resided in the fishhouse, a structure not unfamiliar to me. It seemed strange; but when I tried to find out why Tommy lived in the fishhouse no one could say. Maybe I’d soon discover for myself why he lived there.

  The air was colder now; stars glimmered in the sky like beige diamonds. A nearly full moon, unusually luminous that evening, hung there like a hideous mocking clown face. Lunatics must have been beside themselves. A dull metallic clanging issued from the dark docks. I stretched my neck to spot its source but could make out nothing. The clanging stopped. The light from the lamp on the pier hovered there like a small blue cloud the breeze could not diffuse. A treat for the eyes in the gloom. I kicked a pile of salty slush and described a circle before the door, concerned that when this day ended, my shoes would not regain their shine. Salt wounds leather.

  After a moment I heard the door opening again. I took a deep breath and steeled myself. The little man reappeared, carrying a small white envelope. He held it out to me.

  “Well?” he said, shaking the envelope.

  “This is Tommy’s response?”

  “That’s what it is.”

  I heard something creak above my head but did not look up. “How can I believe you?”

  “Tommy wrote it, okay. And if I were you I’d read it.”

  “You would, eh?”

  “You’re a touchy sort, aren’t you?” he said.

  “If you were me, you would be too.” The creaking above me continued.

  The little man shook the envelope again.

  Glancing up and seeing nothing out of the ordinary, I took the envelope from his hand.

  “Step back,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Step back.”

  By then he had pushed the button that triggered the door, issuing a hydraulic whoosh and then the liquid sucking sound as the door inched shut. The creaking I heard earlier continued. I looked above the entrance and saw the end of a lead pipe jutting out of a window. Someone or something was turning it, hence the creaking. Puzzling. I stared at the pipe for another moment then held up the envelope and tried to read the writing on it—worromot—but it made no sense. Then I realized the word was tomorrow written backwards.

  Did Tommy want me to return tomorrow? This sounded odd. I ripped open the envelope and pulled out the slip of paper inside it, hopeful that it would provide a more comprehensive explanation. But on this slip of paper appeared the same handwritten word: worromot. It meant nothing to me, much as tomorrow meant nothing to me, if that’s what it meant. I was not about to wait until tomorrow to meet with Tommy. My schedule would not permit that. And I suspected he understood that all too well. The situation demanded expediency, like fish heads waiting for the bouillabaisse. Delaying a conference by a day served no purpose whatsoever, to my mind. It merely delayed the inevitable. I glanced up again and saw that the pipe had been withdrawn.

  I walked along the wharf, breathing in the cold harbour air. I liked it near the water, even on a chilly December evening. Snow on the sidewalk resembled heaped ashes, and black slush frothed in the gutters. I felt disoriented, somewhat detached from my surroundings. Things changed as focus and perspective changed, my skull shifting this way and that, my eyes thinning shut then popping open. A block of desiccated blood became a fire hydrant. A Santa Claus with his back to me turned and flashed a pair of bulging D-cups. An undressed mannequin lying by a trash bin jumped to its feet and started sprinting toward the water. Jesus walking an elephant yielded nothing but a snuffling pug and a teenaged boy in a silver costume with spikes poking out of his head. I wanted to hate him for being so young, for being so bizarre, but hate takes time and energy. It is not a simple emotion. Hate must be laid down brick by brick for it to take hold, for it to be strong. Something splashed, something black and slick, a scuba diver—no, some kind of fish, huge. My eyes blurred over; the cold air raked them. I took out my drops and squirted.

  When my eyes cleared I looked at the black water and considered how cold it would be if I fell in. I could swim, but not well, given my weight. I had ballooned in the past year, a glandular issue. I detected no movement among the blocky shadows and heard nothing but the distant traffic and machines of night, and the water.

  I needed to find a quiet place to sit down and sort this out, drink something hot, warm up. I couldn’t think straight in the cold; my ears ached, I could not feel my toes. I walked up from the wharf to a street lined with Christmassy boutiques and candle-lit cafés. I ducked into a place with multi-paneled leaded windows. I sat by one of the windows, beside a blue aluminum tree strung with tiny white lights, and tried to make myself at ease, removing my gloves and stretching my legs. Xylophone music tonkled a gentle Christmas groove over the speakers, and I found myself nodding to its rhythm, feeling it in my bones.

  A red-vested waiter, a man with gaping nostrils and a moustache drawn in with eyeliner, approached the table, crossed his arms on his chest, and stood there without saying a word. His head was square in shape with bloodshot eyes edging toward the temples.

  “Hook me up with a hot toddy,” I joked, but the waiter didn’t flinch. “I’ll have a coffee and a snifter of Grand Marnier, okay?” Unimpressed, the waiter slid off.

  Other patrons occupied tables in the back, and though I heard the muted tones of their conversations and the light tinkle of their glasses and cutlery, and though I smelled their perfumes and colognes, their sweat and their breath, and felt their mild scrutiny thrashing like snakes in the shadows, I made a point of not looking at them.

  The drinks arrived; I creamed my coffee and took a sip. A rich, nutty brew, it pleased me, and I am not easy to please when it comes to coffee. I grind my own beans and so forth. Not that I pretend to be anything but what I am—a working stiff—I do like a nice cup of coffee. I swirled the Grand Marnier around in the snifter and I felt quite light and happy for a moment, almost in a swoon. I sniffed the orange bouquet and let the liqueur trickle into my throat where it burned going down and settled in my stomach like a cool flame.

  The waiter returned.

  “I’ll have another snifter of the juice,” I said. But the waiter lacked affect. “Is something wrong?” I asked.

  “What could be wrong?”

  “You look—I don’t know—disgruntled, depressed. Not the best face to put forward to the public. You think?”

  “Are you some kind of smart ass? I’m just saying.”

  “See. Hostile. What if I were to crack you across the face with a karate chop? Or rip your throat out? Would that discourage your rudeness? I’m just saying.”

  Why wait tables if you can’t give a customer a little smile, a bit of poetry, some song and dance, whatever? Especially during the holiday season. Why piss in my egg nog? Many people get depressed during the holidays, it’s normal, we’ve all been there. So, when all is said and done, it’s absurd to continue doing something that makes you unhappy. Life is very short. In the past, I had been a heedless young man, roaming around without a plan, without a thought in my head, a maniac, a brute. I had come a long way since then—but it had not been an easy road. I had to get the pick and shovel out and break things down, then rebuild, brick by brick. Was I happy now? Well, perhaps not ecstatic. I was not walking around wearing a simper or an expression of beatitude. I was not handing out free balloons and jellybeans at a corner. I had been happier in the past, likely, at some point—I draw a blank but blame that on a memory shot full of holes for many reasons, and not on the past. The past is an elephant: it forgets nothing. It is like the Incarnation, forever in place as time speeds toward the future—or gives that illusion. I was neither unhappy nor labouring at something I hated with my entire being, like the waiter for instance. The waiter sniffed.

  “I hope I didn’t offend you,” I said, noticing his chafed, scaly hands.

  “You did.”

  “But you still brought my drink.” I wondered if he had stuck his finger in it, or worse. Angry waiters like this one had a million tricks up their slee
ve.

  “Yes. Yes, I did.”

  “Well, thanks. Professional of you. It’s admirable. I was starting to lose faith. And it is the holiday season, after all. Isn’t it? But, seriously, you should cheer up. Probably hurts on the tips with the sourness.”

  “My mother died yesterday.”

  This took me aback. “Geez—I’m sorry to hear that, man. Your mother? Well, when is the funeral?”

  “She lives in Greece. I can’t afford to fly out.”

  My mouth fell open. I didn’t know what to say. Life is a bastard sometimes, a real cocksucker. But we had a point of contact here, a shared human thing occurring. “I’ve also had a situation arise.”

  The waiter did not reply; instead his eyes filled with tears and his chin quivered.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, blowing his nose into a large, checked handkerchief. “I’m afraid you’ve caught me at a moment of great weakness, what with the Christmas holidays and so on. It’s been rough. You were saying?”

  “Nothing,” I said, watching him fold up the handkerchief with those hideous hands. He must have doubled as a dishwasher. But anyway, why bother going into details about my situation with this poor guy? I thought. Nothing was for certain. Despite the simplicity of my objective, an octopus of intangibles clouded my clarity, wrapping its tentacles around my head and dragging me along like some kind of mindless meat-puppet. What could I do about it? Sometimes intangibles trump common sense and steer you to dark corners. And yet, without intangibles the world would be a boring place. “It’s not important,” I said to the waiter. “Believe me. And I’m real sorry about your mom, there. I truly am.”

  “Thank you,” said the waiter, dabbing his nose with the folded handkerchief.

  “Hey,” I said. “Not to change the subject—but I have a question for you.”

  “Yes?”

  “You must know this neighbourhood, eh? I mean I used to know it well when I was a kid. Oh yeah, used to come down here all the time with my mates and horse around. My buddy Turkey Mancini fell into the water one windy November day way back when—I remember like it was yesterday—and drowned beside a docked cargo ship. That’s right. But tell me, what’s up with the fishhouse these days?”