by Sergio Gomez
Mrs. Harper nodded. “So, what brought you fine folks here to Dutch County?”
“Needed to get away from the city life, start over,” Scott told them.
“You picked a good place to do that,” Bob said, shoveling six pieces of cut up hotdog on his fork and into his mouth. “Lotta good people here. Nice and quiet place to raise a kid if you plan on having one with Maria.”
“That’s been in the works,” Maria said, sliding her eyes over for a glance at Scott.
“I’m sure Jacky-boy wouldn’t mind a brother or sister, ain’t that right, boy?”
Jack shrugged. “Would be cool, I guess.”
“As long as you don’t have to change its diapers,” Twist blurted out.
All of them laughed, except Mr. and Mrs. Harper.
“Boy, watch your manners.” Bob told him.
Twist dropped his eyes down to his food, but still grinned in self-satisfaction. And he could still hear Jack laughing softly.
“You’ll have to excuse my son,” Bob said to Maria and Scott. “Most of us mind our manners in Dutch County.”
“No, no,” Scott said, “a good laugh is good for the soul.”
Bob rolled on through with what he was saying, as if he hadn’t even heard Scott. “My boy sometimes don’t know when to keep that mouth of his shut, though.”
The tone in his voice was full of disapproval.
Jack noticed the color run out of Oliver’s face and panic set into his eyes. It was strange, never in his life had he seen someone react like that to getting into trouble. Not even the goodie-two-shoe kids in school.
Jack gulped in sympathy.
Oliver didn’t speak for the rest of dinner.
Chapter 2
Raymond threw the piece of sandpaper down on the desk and got out of his chair. The hard work was done. Everything was smoothed out on the dummy. The facial features, the area where the neck and torso met, the shoulders, all of it.
He got up and stepped back to take it in.
The black irises in the eyes stared back at him. It was a little unsettling, because they had life to them already, but the rest of his body was nothing but wood. It was like staring into the eyes of a person who’d been completely shaved—eyelids included.
Raymond sat back in his chair and grabbed the doll off the desk. He set it on his lap, the way Buddy had been doing with his dolls during his routine, and put his hand in the hole to work the lever system that controlled the dummy’s eyes and mouth.
“I’d like some clothes, Father,” he meant it as a joke, but even though his ventriloquist skills were nonexistent, it seemed like the dummy had spoken the words on its own.
“I—I’ll get you some,” Raymond said. He shifted in the chair. “I definitely will. You’re not actually alive, are you?”
Raymond added a nervous laugh, but the dummy’s eyes shifted in their sockets at the question, and his head turned just enough to look Raymond in the face.
“You made me,” the dummy said through him, “you should know the answer to that.”
Raymond laughed, more nervous this time. “Okay, okay, that’s true.”
“Aren’t you glad to have someone to talk to now, Father?” the dummy said.
“Of course, that’s why I made you, Son.”
The doll nodded. “I think you need to give me a name.”
“Hmm,” Raymond said, “a name. Shoot, I hadn’t thought of that.”
“Everybody needs a name, isn’t that right, Father?”
“That’s right Son,” Raymond said, taking his hand out of the hole and putting the dummy back on the desk. “I’ll have to think of one. For now, though, I should go get you some clothes.”
Raymond looked the doll over. “And hair, too.”
He got out of his chair and crossed the workshop. At the light switch he stopped before flicking it off and turned over to the dummy.
“Light on or off, Son?”
No response.
Of course not. He’d been talking to himself the whole time.
A yearning to laugh and cry at the same time filled him. He flicked the light switch off and closed the workshop door behind him.
For a second there, he had convinced himself the dummy had really been speaking to him.
I must be going cuckoo, he thought, grateful to be leaving the house. If only for just a moment.
Chapter 3
“Maybe next time we’ll host dinner,” Maria said as all three of them stepped off the porch.
Oh God, yes please, Scott thought. He knew the moment he bit into one of those spicy hotdog things he was going to be burping them up until tomorrow afternoon.
Mrs. Harper beamed at the prospect of another dinner. “That would be lovely, dear.”
“We’ll set it up,” Scott said. From the corner of his eye he saw Jack give him ‘the look.’ “Oh, almost forgot, Mr. and Mrs. Harper. Would it be okay if the boys played outside for a bit?”
They all looked at Mr. Harper as a grimace flashed across his face, but after a moment he nodded. “Sure.”
“Great,” Scott said. “I’m too old to keep up with him anymore, and I don’t want him getting bored on me.”
They all had a small laugh at this, then Maria and Scott started down the driveway.
“Good night, honeys,” Mrs. Harper said behind them.
“Good night,” both Maria and Scott said.
Jack sat down on the last porch step while one of Oliver’s parents went to go get him.
As soon as the door closed behind them, Scott said, “That was awful.”
Maria laughed and threw her purse onto the couch and then herself. “What’re you talking about? The hotdog was full of flavor.”
Scott laid down on the couch next to her, putting his hand underneath her shirt and running his palm over her naval. “Is that what we’re calling it? I feel like I need to brush my teeth twice before bed tonight.”
Somehow the sauce had been both spicy and bland at the same time, and he could still feel it coating the inside of his mouth.
“I’m surprised Jack ate everything on his plate.”
“Ugh,” Scott said. He’d told himself the whole time they’d been eating that he was going to finish it all to not be rude, but it’d been too much, and he left a lot more on his plate than he intended to. The Harpers hadn’t been upset about it or hadn’t noticed it—or had held a good poker face if it had bothered them.
Then again, Bob Harper didn’t seem like the type who could hold his emotions well.
“My belly is full, but I feel like I still want to eat. Maybe I’ll have a concha,” Maria said.
Scott pressed up tighter against her and slid his hand up past her bra to the top of her boobs to caress her skin there. “I think I can take your mind off of that.”
“Not when Jack’s here, remember?”
Scott lifted her shirt up to expose her stomach, and kissed around her naval twice. “But he’s distracted by our neighbor.”
“Twist,” Maria said, and giggled. “Sweet boy.”
“Mm-hmm,” Scott kissed her above the bellybutton again, “almost as sweet as you.”
Maria moved underneath him and put her hands on both of his shoulders. “You really want to make this happen, huh?”
“Sometimes it’s like it has a mind of its own.”
Maria threw her head back and laughed. “Okay, okay. But let’s make it quick.”
“Yeah, I agree.”
They both got up off the couch and started up to the bedroom.
“Bob Harper really seemed pissed about the joke Twist made at the table, huh?” Maria said as they climbed up the steps.
Scott thought nothing of it. He was old, towed cars for a living, his back probably hurt all the time, and a thirteen-year-old being a wisecrack at the dinner table in front of first time guests probably rubbed him the wrong way.
“Yeah, I guess your sense of humor is the first thing that starts to go when you get to his age.” Scott said.
Maria laughed, and neither of them would think about it again.
Twist was sitting at the desk in his bedroom. The lights were all off except for the desk lamp, just the way he liked it when he was doing his schoolwork. He was working through an algebra problem when he heard Big Bob coming down the hall. He knew it was Big Bob before he opened the door because of how heavy the steps were. He may as well have driven his damn truck through the house with how he walked.
“How many times am I gonna tell you boy, if you don’t turn the lights on when you’re doing homework, you’re going to end up needing glasses,” Big Bob grumbled.
Half of his face was lit by the hallway light; the other half was in shadows from Twist’s darkened room.
Twist nodded. “You’re right, Dad. Sorry.”
“Also, didn’t like how you joked in front of the neighbors tonight.”
Twist saw Big Bob’s hand curl into a fist.
“I know,” he said hastily. “I’m sorry about that, too.”
“The new neighbor’s boy wants you to go and play with him.”
Twist tried to hide his excitement. “Oh?”
“Yeah. Go on out, he’s waiting on our porch. Stay where we can see you, and come back inside in half an hour—no later than that, got it?”
“Okay, Dad,” Oliver started for the closet where his sneakers were.
Bob flicked the bedroom light on. “There ya go. Don’t need you getting dressed in the dark and going out with mismatched shoes. Embarrassing me once tonight was enough already.”
With that said, Bob turned around and went back downstairs to watch the evening news with Wilma.
“Whatever, Bob,” Twist said, glaring daggers at nothing as he tied his shoes on.
It was easy to be mad at the empty air. It couldn’t hurt him.
Chapter 4
“Hey there, Mr. Gibson,” Marley said, pushing a cart of neatly folded jeans for the discount rack.
As the granddaughter of the original owner she’d grown up in the store and had been running Clothing ‘N’ Things for thirteen years now, so she knew each and every customer who came through her door, and she could tell within four steps of them coming in where they were headed. Which is how she knew Raymond Gibson was heading toward the children’s section.
“Good evening, Marley,” Raymond said, stopping next to her.
“Heading to the children’s section, are ya?” She tried to not make the question sound suspicious, but it was difficult. As far as she knew, the old man didn’t have any children in his life.
He nodded. “Got a new toy that needs clothing.”
“Ah, yes, yes. Aren’t human clothes a little too big for a toy, though?” she laughed.
Now that they were standing so close, she sensed something was different about the man. She couldn’t tell what, though. It wasn’t something on his face or the clothes he was wearing. It was something subtler. Like his shadow didn’t match up with his body, or something.
She laughed again, nervously. That was a silly thought.
“This is a special one, Marley,” Raymond explained with a wink. “A child-sized dummy.”
“Ooh, like a ventriloquist one? Like the ones Buddy Killian uses?”
A frown of frustration flashed across his face. Why did everyone love that fool comedian so much? “That’s right, Marley.”
“Oh, oh, me and Roger just adore him. We watched him on TV the other night and laughed and laughed.”
“Me too,” Raymond lied. “He inspired me to make a dummy of my own, actually.”
“First dummy you ever made?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“You any good at ventriloquism?” She eyed him through her thick rimmed glasses with a playfully suspicious eye.
Raymond chuckled. “No. But it’s almost like these dummies have a mind of their own.”
“Oh!” Marley threw her hand up in the air, then started pushing the cart away. “I absolutely love Buddy’s performance, but I don’t think I could live with one of them dummies.”
“They’re interesting in their own way, that’s for sure,” Raymond said.
“You go on and find your dummy a nice little outfit. Don’t mean to hold you up, Mr. Gibson.”
“No problem, Marley,” he started his own way. “You close at nine tonight, right?”
Without turning around, Marley said, “Nine o’clock it is, Mr. Gibson. Another night, another dollar.”
Raymond checked his watch. It was only 7:45. Plenty of time to get an outfit for his son and then head over to the costume shop to get hair for him.
He didn’t even need to go very far into the children’s section to find the perfect outfit for his son. A striped shirt, red and yellow just like the one Ernesto used to wear, seemed to be calling out to him. Clipped underneath the shirt on a hanger was a pair of denim shorts.
Perfect.
“Well,” Raymond said, smiling, “that was easy.”
He grabbed the outfit and took it up to the counter. Marley saw him as he walked toward the register and stopped shelving the jeans to meet him up there.
“Boy, that was quick, Mr. Gibson.”
“These projects Marley, when the going gets good, it’s like they take control of the reins.”
Marley nodded. “Sure, sure.”
“Everything comes together at once, and I don’t have to think if I’m doing things right. That’s when the creative magic is happening, you know?”
She had no idea what he was talking about. Marley could barely fry eggs for her poor husband in the morning and preferred to “cook” dinner out of boxes and cans, but the customer was always right, so she bobbed her head as he talked and rang up the merchandise.
“Oh, I believe it, Mr. Gibson.” The register showed the total. “$10.95 with the Fall clearance. What a deal and a steal! Oh, but you’ve forgotten shoes. You can’t have your poor dummy go barefoot, now can you?”
Raymond felt foolish. Never having shopped for a child because he’d had no nieces or nephews, he found he was completely out of his depth. He left the shirt and pants there, and went back. On a shelf near the back, he found a pair of black and red sneakers. Just by looking at them he could tell they would fit the dummy’s feet. He took a pack of socks too, the kind with blue and yellow stripes around the top.
As an afterthought, he grabbed a package of boy’s underwear. His son shouldn’t go commando. No, sir.
Marley looked a little surprised at the last item, but she didn’t say anything about it when she rang it up. With the new price, Raymond had to pull out two twenties from his wallet. He stuffed the change in his pocket.
“Maybe if you get good enough, Mr. Gibson,” Marley said as she bagged everything for him, “you can put on a ventriloquism show for the town kids. Be our own Buddy Killian.”
Raymond knew she meant it as a joke, and chuckled along with her, but he thought maybe that wouldn’t be a bad idea.
The bell rang above his head as he left the store, heading for the Theater Shop.
The Theater Shop’s customers were almost exclusively Cyndi Fonda who ran the Golden Bear Theater, the local Dutch County theater that hosted all of the Christmas musicals, and traveling band and orchestra shows that happened to pass through.
The other customers of the Theater Shop were the local high school drama club looking for wigs and jewelry for the seniors’ performance of Pocahontas or Beauty and the Beast, or whatever the year’s play selection was.
Then there were the local old people that stopped by to buy outfits that they would repurpose for their dogs and cats to wear. They were far and few between, and sadly, with each passing year, less frequent as well.
The real money for the Theater Shop was around Halloween time, when everyone wanted a vampire cape, an Indian headdress, a grey alien mask, or some such thing. The Halloween boom was where the company put itself in the black, and everything else year-round was just supplementary.
Which was the reason R
oy Green was surprised when he saw Raymond Gibson coming through the door of his shop. The shop was narrow, longer than it was wide, and as such he could sit behind the counter and watch over the rest of the shop like a perched eagle. All he needed to do was move his head a little to see down each of the cramped aisles, which is why he was usually posted there.
Roy put down the golden crown he was wiping down with a cotton ball soaked in rubbing alcohol, and walked around the counter to meet Mr. Gibson. It was too late for Halloween shoppers, and as far as he knew Mr. Gibson wasn’t one of the big Halloween shoppers anyway. This was strange.
“Mr. Gibson,” Roy said, sticking his beefy hand out.
Raymond didn’t like shaking the man’s hand, he was one of those tubby guys that never seemed to stop sweating, but those in Dutch County minded their manners. He shook it and gave him a warm smile. “Hello, Roy. How’ve you been?”
“Hanging in there,” Roy said, then cleared his throat. “What brings you here?”
“Looking for a wig.”
“A wig?” Roy couldn’t help but look up at the top of the man’s head. His hair was white as the cotton ball he’d been using on the crown, and his hairline was receding, but he wasn’t anywhere close to bald.
“Not for me,” Raymond said, his smile thinning.
“Ah. For one of those toys of yours?”
“Correct.”
“Ah, I see, I see.” Roy levered himself out of his chair and led Raymond to the aisle with the wigs, the furthest one to the right in the shop.
As they walked through the shop (with Roy waddling in front of him) the shopkeeper kept talking. “Not sure what kind you’re looking for Mr. Gibson, but I got plenty of variety here.”
They stopped in front of the wig section, a metal rack about six-by-six feet with various wigs hanging on hooks. There was indeed a wig for any type of outfit you may be looking for. Long-haired wigs, short-haired wigs, medium-length wigs. There were some cut into bobs and mullets. There were afros with big curls or tight curls. The colors were as varied as the styles: blond, red, black, and even crazy colors like bright greens and blues that may have been used for a clown outfit, perhaps.
