Ground Zero

    God was after Grover Prue.  He knew that sure as he knew his own name, though he couldn’t have explained why.  He had tried to be a decent fellow always; loyal to his friends, respectful of his elders, pious and patriotic as the next lad.  Or no, much more so than the next lad.  He’d seen to that.  Scrupulously: altar boy, Eagle Scout, Honor Society, he’d done it all.  Yet the Big Guy was still out for his hide, and no mistake.  Grover had never discussed this fact with anyone—not in so many words—but they all knew it too.  His parents, his brother and sister, his classmates, and even the neighbors knew it.  Because they’d witnessed, as he had, the Wrath in all its fury. 

            They’d been there, some of them, at the birthday party when Grover turned six and the oak came down.  A mammoth of a thing it was: eighty feet high, old as the Colonies and solid as a mountain.  Or so it had seemed.  In reality, it was hollow as a gourd from generations of termites having their own party, and down it had come that day—square across the redwood table where they’d all been eating lunch.  Grover’s sister Macie had just gotten up to play horseshoes, joined by cousin Clarence, brother Ralph and Grover’s buddies Philip, Seton, and Carl.  Only the birthday boy remained on the bench, polishing off a second slice of cake and content as a clam.  It missed him, that tree did, by about a yard, halving the table and rattling windows in the house next door.  Its limbs had struck like Louisville Sluggers, annihilating plates and glasses but sparing the little towhead who popped up through the leaves, goggle-eyed and still chewing. 

            A couple of years went by, and the incident entered the realm of family legend, embellished with each retelling of this astonishing, once-in-a-lifetime phenomenon.

            Then the boiler blew.  It was a steam explosion, the principal had explained.  The principal of Toddville Elementary School, that is, who admitted to Grover’s parents that he was only repeating what the state inspector had told him.  It seemed the automatic feed-water valve had stuck shut, but that the safety switch hadn’t cut off the fire like it was supposed to do when that happened.  So the drum had gotten hotter and hotter until it was red-hot and glowing, like the filament in a toaster.  Only this was a steel tank twelve feet long and heavy as an Eldorado.  Then the valve popped open and let the water in—which flashed to steam so fast that it blew the thing apart like an overstuffed balloon. 

            A wall of the boys’ lavatory had been demolished, filling the air with deadly shrapnel.  Fortunately, the room had been empty at the time save for a lone occupant: Grover Prue.  The third-grader had been balancing a wooden bathroom pass on a finger and contemplating life from the perspective of the third stall when all heck broke loose.  He was spared by a sturdy metal partition which had absorbed the impact of the flying debris but not, alas, the sound waves, which had left him deaf for nearly a week.

            While inexpressibly grateful for their son’s good fortune, George and Edna Prue couldn’t help noting the peculiar coincidence of a second, ultra-close call.  Sideward glances were exchanged when the events were linked in conversation.  But they got over it, and Grover went back to his studies, George to his job at Q-Mart, and mother Edna to managing it all.  

            The following June, the family had made its annual jaunt to Happy Valley Amusement Park.  It was small by modern standards—one of the nation’s oldest, in fact—and was home, therefore, to no parachute plunges, theme rides or geriatric, kibble-fed tigers like some of its competitors.  What it offered instead was a wholesome, hand-tooled charm that had endeared it to generations.            

            On line for cotton candy, Grover spotted a teenage girl by the Fun House who seemed to be watching him.  Too young to have the social wares to look away, he had simply stared back, and it was she who, with a smile and a nod, finally broke the connection.  Only then did he realize how pretty she was, this fresh-faced, long-haired blonde, but when he turned around again with his treat, she was gone.            

            After lunch, Macie and Ralph made straight for the Dragon Coaster, while Mom and Dad escorted their little brother to his own favorite ride: Spinning Sammy Spider.  Rushing ahead as he munched on a corn dog, Grover was approaching the lovable giant of a whirling red bug, his eyes wide with excitement, when it decided to come to him instead.  With a horrific groan, a critical linkage let go, and one of Sammy’s legs—a twenty foot assembly with a two-seater car attached to one end—broke free and sailed through the air like the hammer of Thor.  Mother Edna, was dumb struck; there was no time to reach him, to yank him from harm’s way, to do anything but give voice to the heart-wrenching cry that ripped from her lungs. 

            Grover didn’t hear it.  The music of the calliope, the whoops and bells from the other rides, the buzz of the folks around him—all of it was gone now as he watched a slow motion, 3-D drama in rapt silence.  The spider leg was coming for him.  Not to the right and not to the left, but for him, Grover, star of his own disaster film.  And he was rigid, ossified, as fixed to the spot as if he’d been planted there, watered and nurtured for a full nine years in preparation for this event.  He watched as the thing grew huge, until he could plainly see the faces of two grownups, mouths locked in screaming O’s as they hurtled his way.  Grover closed his eyes and sound returned: shrieks and shouts and then a blast of wind and a terrible, protracted crash—

            His mother seized hold of him and spun him around to face her, and when he opened his eyes he was looking at the ticket booth over her shoulder.  Or what was left of it.  The roof had been shorn off completely, the supporting uprights probing space like an inverted stool.  Beyond that, Sammy’s leg had punched through Humpty Dumpty’s papier-mâche wall, leaving an outline of itself before landing in a haymow at the Children’s Zoo.  People picked their way through squawking chickens and bleating goats to reach the couple still in the car, looking as bewildered as if they’d landed on the moon. Grover’s mother clutched him to her breast.  “Oh, honey, honey,” she sobbed.  “I thought we’d lost you.  I thought my baby was gone for sure.”  She thrust him away for a better view.

“Why, it came so—”  Her eyes rose to a scratch on her son’s forehead, a scratch that led to a perfect part in his hair that hadn’t been there before, coinciding, she would later find, with a six-inch bolt distending dagger-like from the belly of the two-seater car.   “So close,” she finished, and George was there to catch her when she fell.

            Life continued normally after that—if playing dodge ball with the Grim Reaper is what you consider normal.  When he was twelve, for example, lightning struck the aluminum flagpole in front of Toddville Middle School.  The freak discharge of a single scudding cloud, no one was anywhere near the thing at the time—except for Master Grover Prue, who’d been leaning against it, daydreaming.  The pole itself survived intact, but Old Glory, vigorously awave beneath a brass finial, had burst into flame like it was doused with gasoline.  As had Grover—or more accurately, his green flannel shirt—a nigh disaster averted by the quick-witted maintenance man, who had tackled the sprinting torch only seconds from immolation.  Grover’s injuries were thus limited to the loss of a favorite garment, and the indignity of failing to outrun the janitor.

            Nobody thought the boy was to blame.  Anymore than they had when the Wawkatinny Creek Bridge collapsed a heartbeat after his bike had rolled over it; or a few months later when the only recorded twister in Bolton County had leveled the Captain Cone Ice-cream Hut as Grover departed with a black-and-white soft serve; or when the façade of the old Brewster Building had crumbled into Main Street, pulverizing a taxi stand and a VW Beetle, but leaving the teenager poised between them entirely unscathed. 

            Increasingly however, the townsfolk (and eventually even his friends and relatives) had begun to keep their distance.  It seemed only logical that such a stretch of luck was bound to run out eventually, and that when it did, it would be the boy proper, rather than the surrounding acreage, who would get clobbered.  Grover seemed to sense this also.  Against the protest of his parents and the recommendation of his guidance counselor, he had taken, upon graduation from high school, a caretaker’s position in another town.  The salary wasn’t much, but at least the bus wouldn’t empty out whenever he climbed aboard.  And more significantly, it called for hours to be spent on the spacious lawn, or tending to one of the gardens, or mending fences in some far-flung corner of the estate, where dragging others along on his trip to the Pearly Gates might be avoided.

            And so it was that Grover, a handsome young man of nineteen, who felt as if he had already lived far more years than the calendar would suggest, at last found a measure of peace in his life.  Not the sort of peace that you or I would recognize—what with rabid skunks and copperheads slinking into your path, and the chainsaw kicking back to trim your sideburns with some regularity—but enough for Grover Prue.  In the evening, when his chores were done, Grover would settle into his little cottage to enjoy a frozen dinner and an hour or two of television.  He was especially fond of the history fare, where a show about the Titanic or the curse on Tut’s Tomb would strike a sympathetic chord.  Later, after the screen went dark and he lay awake listening to the mockingbird flinging its rejection of circadian rhythms into a vast and lonely night, it would come again.  That dreadful introspection, when he'd wonder for the umpteenth time if he had done something terrible to bring all this about.  If so, he sure couldn’t put his finger on it.

            And then, much as he tried to avoid the topic, to concentrate on the next day’s work, or King Tut, or anything else whatsoever, he would end up pondering how it would happen.  He didn’t dread the idea as he once had, didn’t waste his time anymore on elaborate schemes of avoidance or escape.  Death came to everyone eventually.  For him, the scale was tilted a bit toward the sooner side, that’s all.  He only hoped was that it wouldn’t be too painful, and he’d pray for that as sleep enfolded.

*   *   *

            Grover dog-eared his paycheck as he stood in line at the bank.  He was thinking about a movie he planned to watch that evening—an action-adventure yarn, full of the car chases, fist fights and shootouts that brought him so much joy.  There was something about the sheer phoniness of the Hollywood mayhem that he found soothing, even if, for obvious reasons, he wouldn’t have touched a real gun with a pair of tongs.  Like that one.  Darned if that didn’t look just like the butt-end of a pistol in the crease of that guy’s shopping bag, the fidgety one with the salt-and-pepper beard…

            “Alright!  Everybody down on the floor!  This is a stickup!”  He waved the weapon ominously, then strode to the teller’s window and shoved his bag through the slot.  “Fill it up,” he growled.  “And be quick about it!”  The startled woman opened her cash drawer, and began transferring sheaves of bills.

For Grover, sprawled on the tile with the rest of them, it seemed as if the entire universe were reduced to the glint of that revolver.  He was so focused on it that he didn’t notice the person to his right—a ruddy-faced gentleman in a camel-hair blazer—was surreptitiously coiling himself into a crouch.  When the teller unlatched her window to hand over the money, this man sprang to his feet—brandishing a sidearm of his own.  “Police!” he announced, to a chorus of drawn breaths.  “Drop the gun!” 

Eyes on the bag in front of him, the robber froze for a moment—then spun around.  He didn’t stand a chance.  Already in position, the cop had only to squeeze his trigger.  The resultant click was loud as a church bell in the absolute quiet: his gun had misfired.  As he fought to eject the round he managed to jam the next one, panic replacing confidence in a sickening reversal.      

His opponent, meanwhile, had screwed up his face in bleak anticipation, not even attempting to shoot back.  Now his bravado returned with a vengeance.  Seeming to enjoy himself, he made a show of taking aim.

Then Grover was up like and leaping in front of the officer.  A shot rang out.  Then another one, and again and again and again—each blast deafening in the marble-walled enclosure.  To his left, a rack of brochures blew into pieces.  To his right, a cardboard spokesman caught one and went down.  Over his shoulder, a windowpane shattered and an instant later its neighbor followed suit.  The policeman grunted with each report like a boxer taking a punch.  Suddenly, there was silence.  The thief glared down at his smoking weapon, and up again at an unharmed Grover.  Seconds passed.  Then he was dashing for the exit, all thought of loot abandoned. 

He didn’t make it.  The cop took him out with a flying tackle that carried the two of them over a divider, sailing across the manager’s desk and onto the kiddie table, which collapsed like a house of cards.  On his back now and out cold, the crook had, by all appearances, nodded off while perusing The Cat In The Hat.   

Grover picked his way through the patrons and exited onto the sidewalk.  The ringing in his ears was reminiscent of another day, long past, except that this time he recognized the tune: it was the Song of Survival.  Epiphany had come as he lay in contact with an ice-cold floor.  There was no reason for it, no cause, simply an awareness that hadn’t been there before.  It was a total rewriting of his entire life, anything and everything turned on its head.    

God wasn’t after him at all.  It was precisely the reverse: he was protected.  By what or by whom he had no idea, but it was there alright—an invisible shield—and it was powerful.  Powerful enough to guard him against every conceivable calamity.  Which naturally begged the question of…why? 

He peered across the avenue to find, arising from behind a parked car opposite, a family of three who had taken cover when the shooting began.  Two of them were little girls (twins, he could tell that), long haired, cherubic blondes about eight years old.  The third was their mother—a woman he had seen before.  First at an amusement park all those years ago, and occasionally thereafter: among the crowd departing a theater, across the concourse at a busy mall, through the window of a train or bus.  Sometimes he thought that she’d seen him too, and at others not so much, but he would always sense a connection between them, ethereal as sunshine but every bit as real.  He felt that now as she returned his gaze, and in that instant—(poof!)—the final piece of the puzzle snapped into place.

“He’s alright!” he shouted, adding a thumbs-up for emphasis.  She smiled back at him and returned the gesture, and he knew that she understood.  They had been waiting for their daddy (and husband) in the bank—a ruddy-faced gentleman in a camel-hair blazer. 

            And it left him then, whatever it was, left him like a bird that had taken wing, and it felt as if a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders.  He strolled to the end of the block in a jubilant daze and kept on going into rush-hour traffic, and everyone would agree later that he never felt a thing.  

This story was originally printed in Willard & Maple magazine.

The Enchanted Stall

    Hollander didn’t expect his morning break to be any different than usual.  Coffee from the machine in the lobby, a visit to the restroom, and back to work.  No big deal.  And when the deviation presented itself, it was a bagatelle, a trifle, hardly worth a moment’s thought.  But he did give it that much—and his decision would change everything. 

            Ordinarily, he used the first of four stalls in the company men’s room.  With a brick barrier on one side, it afforded him more privacy than the middle two.  The far enclosure was similarly advantaged, but that one had been broken for as long as he could remember.  Today, however, the OUT OF ORDER sign was conspicuously removed, and Hollander—feeling adventurous—had elected to try it out. 

Once ensconced, he’d inspected his venue with a critical eye.  Should its ambience prove superior to that of Old Reliable, there was certainly no reason not to switch.  But for all intents and purposes, they were identical: both were painted the same, blah, industrial blue, comparably lit, and even defaced with equivalent graffiti.  (Efforts had been made to eradicate this latter, but it was hopeless, like shooing flies from your picnic lunch.)  Between his Oxfords were the familiar two-tone ceramic tiles, set in a random pattern.  He had learned that by forming these mentally into well-known structures—the Alamo, say, or the Eiffel Tower—the boredom of confinement could be partially mitigated.  Better in this regard was a magazine, and best of all a paperback novel—providing its storyline were as far removed from tax returns and balance sheets as creatively feasible.  His current read, which he extracted now from a pocket of his hanging sport jacket, was a yellowing whodunit from the used-book store.  About to dive in, he realized that he wasn’t exactly comfortable.  The seat beneath him was cockeyed or something, and as he tried to center himself, his elbow struck the flush lever.

            “Darn,” he grumbled, at a spritz of cold water.  And then came…

            …the Voice.  “Greetings, Squire,” it said.

            Hollander jerked his head around to a man beside him.  He grabbed for his pants, but they were already up.  Next he discovered that he was no longer seated, but standing—outside—in a field of grass.

            “Greetings,” the man repeated.  He was short and trim, with long blonde hair and bright blue eyes.  He stood with his legs apart and arms akimbo, in black leotards, a scarlet blouse, and a three-quarter length cape that fluttered about him in the breeze.  “It’s quite alright.  Newcomers are often startled at first, but you are entirely safe here, I assure you.” 

            Hollander found his tongue.  “Who the cluck are you?”

            “I am Porcelino, the crown prince.”  He stepped forward to offer a hand.   The ring finger sported a ruby the size of a pearl onion.  Hollander gawked at it. 

            “Ah, yes.  The Regal Stone.  A duplicate of my poor father’s, wherever he might be.”

            A giggle drew their attention to a nearby conifer.  A face appeared and was gone again: peek-a-boo.  The prince chuckled.  “Come on out, Tinkles.  Out, now, and show yourself.”  From behind the tree sprang an even smaller man—or no, a creature—a man’s body, but with the enormous head of a squirrel, glistening brown eyes and buckteeth.  It walked upright, but precariously—as if all fours were the normal mode—in lederhosen, over a pelt of reddish fur.  As Hollander watched, it covered its eyes shyly with a paw.

            “This is Tinkles, the messenger,” said the prince.  “It is he who informed me of your presence here today.”

            “B—but,” stammered Hollander.  He felt as though a high-voltage charge were arcing between his earlobes.  “Where am I?  And—how did I get here?”

            “You are in the kingdom of Söoerland.  A place far removed from the one you know.  As to how you got here, I’m afraid that process remains a mystery.  My people put great store in magic, and there’s a touch of that to be sure.  I can tell you that you managed, by whatever means, to access…the Vortex.”  At the sound of the word, squirrel-boy buried his face in the prince’s cloak.  “There, there, Tinkles.  It’s alright, son. 

            “You see Squire, the Vortex is a kind of portal between our two worlds.  Nobody knows how it works, exactly; only that people can pass through it without warning, and in either direction.”

            Hollander stared numbly at these apparitions, then beyond them at a huge stone castle looming in the distance.  A rider was approaching from that direction.  And as it drew closer, he saw that it was a dark-haired woman in white finery atop a majestic steed, locks trailing out in a gorgeous banner.  The others turned to look.  “It is indeed your lucky day, my friend.  First you meet the prince of the realm, and now you shall greet his sister.”  A squeal of delight escaped Tinkles. 

            When the horse had drawn to a halt and its rider dismounted, Hollander’s jaw fell.  If before he’d been soaring through levels of bewilderment, tethered to earth by a gossamer thread, that thread was now snipped with a golden scissors, and the breaths of angels and cherubs wafting him ever higher into the void.  For striding his way was quite simply the loveliest woman he had ever laid eyes upon.  “Squire,” said the prince, “may I present to you Phloe, princess of Söoerland.”  She closed the space between them, enveloped him in a ravishing scent, cradled his face in her hands, and kissed him full on the lips.  He rapped his heels together blissfully as a dog might wag its tail, but then she was drifting away again like a boat departing the dock—

“Don’t go!” he shouted, lunging forward…

…to slam against a closed steel door.   

“You alright in there?”

            Hollander looked around him at the familiar blue walls.  “Yeah, ” he spluttered at last.  “Thanks.  I’m fine.” 

*   *   *

Reaching absently for the coffee cup, Hollander knocked it over.  A mad scramble ensued as he rushed to save his documents.  Only then did he notice Freddy Fellows’ pasty face, smirking from the opposite cubicle.  He grabbed a pencil and winged it at him, but it hit the divider and fell to the floor.  Someone in pinstripes picked it up. 

“Problems, Richard?”  Mr. DeWitt wore a mirthless grin.

Hollander aped it.  “Oh, no, sir.  Thank you, sir.”  When the boss had gone he turned back to his computer, determined to get some work done.  But it was no use.  The Question blocked all progress like a mountain in the path of a railroad; something to be blasted away with ton after ton of TNT.  But he only had a firecracker.  And no matches.

He’d nodded off and had a dream.  That had to be the answer.  He’d never fallen asleep  before in the john, but there was a first time for everything.  And they only took a second, so even if it seemed like longer, that was just an illusion.  So there it was.  He’d just had a silly dream is all: Q. E. D.

*   *   *

            Fruit pies beckoned from a lighted case.  The guy in the baseball cap was munching his daily burger, while waitresses passed in and out of the kitchen like a relay team.  In short, the diner was as it always was when he turned up there for dinner: a thirty-year-old bachelor, presently between girlfriends.  (Way between, he noted glumly.)

            A soccer match was commencing on TV.  But instead of the players, Hollander saw a beauty on horseback, breasts abob in a clutch of satin and tresses flying in ravishing waves…   

“Meatloaf no good?”

“Oh, no, Gretchen, it’s fine.  Just not very hungry tonight.”

“How about dessert?  A nice slice of pie, maybe?”

He shook his head.  “Just the check, please.  Going home to hit the sack early.  This’ll sound nuts, but—did you ever have a dream so nice you wanted to get back into it?”

“Yeah, once,” she said.  “In Atlantic City.  But I sobered up.”

*   *   *

It advanced with a maddening deliberation, like the minute hand of a watch.  It was the minute hand of his watch.  Hollander had checked it so many times now that the image was seared onto his retinas.  Finally, he pushed the chair back and stood up.  Nine-eighteen: time for a break.    

Instead of the usual coffee fix, today he passed right by the machine and strode chin-up and resolute, to the can.  Entering the first stall, he shut the door and settled in.  Nothing was going to happen, of course, he understood that.  Nothing out of the ordinary, anyhow.  And yet, much as he tried to resist it, he couldn’t suppress a certain frisson.  A feeling that, maybe, just maybe...  He took out his paperback and began to read.  Polishing off one page, he started down the next.  But soon he became aware that he was only skimming the words with no comprehension, and stealing glances left and right—

He slammed the book shut.  It hadn’t been a dream, darn it!  He’d been there!  He’d touched her!  But, why?  How?  There had to be a key, a triggering mechanism of some sort.  He didn’t have a clue what it was, but he did know one thing: if it had happened once, it could happen again.  And he very much wanted it to happen again.  C’mon, now, Rich; you’re a college boy—think!  Rub two brain cells together! 

Dropping his gaze to the floor tiles, landmarks emerged to greet him like old friends.  He reasoned across the Brooklyn Bridge, cogitated around the pillars of Stonehenge, and was ruminating up an Aztec pyramid when penny loafers appeared in the space below the door.

“Hey, Rich!  You in there?” 

It was Freddy.  “What do you want?”

            “Better come out.  Dimwit’s been pacing around your cubicle for twenty minutes now.”

            Twenty minutes?  Ye gods!  “O.K.,” he said.  “Thanks.”

*   *   *

            “These are most impressive, Richard.  Clearly you’re wasting your time with all this accounting nonsense.”  It was a ledger pad, filled with grade-school quality sketches of castles and horses and something that looked like a rat in a Boy Scout uniform.  He hadn’t dared to render Phloe.  “Sorry to be so crass as to mention business, but there’s that trifling matter of the Bloomberg account.  You remember.  Our biggest client?  Moving along on that, are we?”

            “Well, uh—” 

The smile collapsed.  “Now, listen to me carefully, Richard.  Today is Wednesday.  You’ll have those books audited, annotated and on my desk by noon Friday, or you’ll be finger-painting on somebody else’s dime.  Got it?”

            Hollander gulped.  “Got it, sir.”

*   *   *

            Lying awake for a second straight night, Hollander stared at the ceiling fan.  It looked like a bug from a fifties’ horror movie, ready to pounce.  He glanced at the clock: 4:15.  If he went to sleep right this minute, he could still get almost three and a half— 

            Yeah, right; who was he kidding.  After a sigh, he started in again, parsing every minute of the previous day.  All the files he’d had open, all the calls that he’d made, every scratch, burp, yawn and wiggle he could dredge from a silted pond of memory.  There had to be a detail, some crucial bit of minutiae that he’d overlooked—and then it was just there, like the name of that band you’d been trying to remember (Badfinger). 

            It was that stall.  The one at the far end.  He’d never used that one before yesterday—there had to be a link!  

                                                                        *   *   *

The cold light of morning put a new complexion on things.  When Hollander actually examined the Bloomberg account and saw what it entailed, that complexion became a deathly pallor, brightened here and there by the rosy buboes of encroaching doom.  Suddenly Xanadu, or whatever it was, seemed as remote and ethereal as a Kindergarten sing along.  Bottom line: he had a week’s worth of work to do in a day and a half, or he’d be scrounging empties for the mortgage money.  Booting up his workstation, he squared his shoulders, took a deep breath, and dove in.

*   *   *

It was ten-thirty before he answered a call of nature.  Commencing sometime earlier as a mere whisper, it clamored now for attention like a Klaxon in a phone booth.  He hit the men’s room door at a bound, flinging it wide to clear the old janitor’s waxy visage by a whisker.  “Sorry, Rex!” he blurted, and, seeing the man was cleaning his normal haunt, hurried on down to the end.  Then he was locked inside and wrestling his buckle like a skydiver with a tangled ripcord.  He plunged onto the seat off balance, his palm mashing the handle…

…and was jolted every which way at once, as if he were riding a bucking bronco.  His vision cleared, and he found he was riding a bucking bronco, holding on in white-knuckled terror as the great beast stamped and gamboled beneath him.  Suddenly it lurched forward and settled into a trot, giving him time between spankings for a frantic look around.  Shock arrived and dissipated in a bell-curve swoop; no chance for indulgence when a slip could break your neck.  He was back in the kingdom, and surrounded by horses.  But wait.  Weren’t those—horns?  He peered again at the equine skull bobbing before him, and saw that it too had a three-foot spire protruding from the crown.  Oh, no—it couldn’t be.  This was too much.  And the riders!  They weren’t—human.  Next to him was the squirrel-boy, and in front a kangaroo, and darned if that fuzzy one wasn’t a marmoset—

            He looked ahead at the castle rushing up to them and a drawbridge lowering from immense, clanking chains, and as they crossed the moat (a moat!), he glanced down at a fellow in a dinghy with a blazer and skipper’s hat...

They tore through the courtyard at full speed, his efforts at braking having no effect whatever on the storybook quadruped between his thighs.  Then it skidded to a halt of its own volition, launching him into the arms of a gap-toothed behemoth draped in animal skins.  He struggled to free himself with all the efficacy of a bunny in a bear trap.

            “Do not worry, Squire!  Harry will not hurt you!”  It was Tinkles, sounding as if he were speaking through a kazoo.  But sure enough, the ogre set him down gentle as a feather before a vaulted door.  It was only then that he noticed his own bold attire: purple blouse with billowing sleeves above skin-tight black breeches and an orange cod-piece, the only familiar apparel his trusty brown Oxfords.  Now the big door swung open, and he was swept with the others into a great hall lighted by flaming torches.  The scene they revealed was so bizarre that he didn’t know whether to soil himself or go blind.  A table the length of a flatcar was heaped with food: baskets of pineapples and coconuts, mounds of un-shucked corn, and what looked like tubs of birdseed.  Around this sat a menagerie of people, livestock, and missing links of every description, jabbering away in a haze of glottal gibberish.  Behind them was a curtained archway with suits of armor to either side.  The curtains parted and a figure emerged; Hollander recognized the little prince from his previous visit.  He thought of Phloe then, and began a fervid search of the room.  There was a woman facing away from him with a tumble of black hair atop alabaster shoulders, and when she turned, their eyes met for an electric instant—

            “People of Söoerland,” intoned the prince.  “I must interrupt our feast with ill tidings.  The sentries report that within the hour, we shall face assault—yet again—from our most relentless tormentor.  I refer, of course, to the insensitive, mean-spirited and wantonly homicidal Clench, Earl of Rimstayne, and his redoubtable Floaters!”  A suck of breath set the torchlight aflicker.  What did this mean? thought Hollander.  Were there about to be hostilities?  Should he try to escape?  But, how?  And—what the heck was a Floater?

            “I wish I could spare you, good subjects, from this dire fate.  But, alas, I am powerless.  Even as I was powerless to protect my own father, the king—”  (All heads bowed as one to reprise: ‘The king...’)  “—borne away by the earl’s evil ally,” and here he dropped his pitch to a disdainful growl, “the Wicked Wizard of Whoosh—” 

            A burst of light and a puff of smoke, and when it cleared there stood upon the tabletop a shrunken codger in tattered robes and a conical hat, with a scruffy beard, and a nose so long that it dimpled his upper lip.  Cries of anguish filled the air. 

            “Did I hear my name?” screeched the wizard, and he began a sort of frenzied tap dance, chalices and silverware scattering all around him.  “Banish him I did!  Your beloved king!  Into the Vortex!  And I’d do the same with the lot of you—only I’m old and tired, and can’t remember the spell too clearly.”  He stopped prancing now to stare down mournfully at his slippers.  “But I do recall this one,” he shrieked, and stabbed a gnarled digit at a fellow in a nearby seat.  There was a POP! and the man was gone—replaced by a salmon that flopped about like a fish out of water.  “Hee-hee!” tittered the fiend.  “Fish chowder on the menu, I see!  And how about you, Master Tinkles?  Would you care to join in the fun?”

            A yelp escaped the squirrel-boy as the demon singled him out.  He grabbed Hollander’s hand for protection, the POP! sounded again, and Hollander found himself holding a squirming catfish by the tail.  “Nyahhh!” he yowled, tossing it into a punch bowl.  POP! and kangaroo-man was a mackerel.  POP! and a woman became a crappie, piscine countenance puckered in surprise.  “And now for the great and noble Porcelino!” the villain roared, spinning to confront the defiant prince.  As he drew a bead on the diminutive figure, Hollander dashed forward.  Scooping a coconut from one of the baskets, he hurled it like a shot-putter going for the gold.  There was a CRACK! as the missile connected with the wizard’s skull; he tottered for a moment like a statue of Lenin, then pitched headlong to the floor.

            Stillness reigned.  Suddenly it was shattered with shouts of “Hoorah!”  Hollander was hoisted into the air and spun like a pinwheel.  “Harry Cheakes!” called the prince.  “Set the squire down, lest he lose his lunch!”  The hulk landed Hollander on the banquet table, where he staggered about drunkenly till a hand seized his own.  It was Porcelino, and he wagged the limp appendage with fervor.  “I can’t thank you enough, Squire!  How ever did you summon the pluck?”

            Hollander was giddy.  “Well, your honor, I don’t really know.  I’m not a violent man by nature—”

            Another voice sliced through the din.  “Harry Cheakes, lift me up to greet the squire.”  He turned to see the princess rising fairy-like to his side.  “In the name of our kingdom,” she said with a flutter of lashes, “I thank you for your gallant deed.”  She gave him a curtsy, and the room erupted in applause. 

Now the curtains parted anew, and something that looked like a six-foot parrot capered into the hall.  “Prince Porcelino!” it squawked.  “The enemy is nigh!  Soon they will be upon us!”  Panic set in at once.  Guests ran in all directions, slamming into the table and forcing Hollander and the princess alight on opposite sides.

            “Harry Cheakes!” shouted the prince.  “Open the armory posthaste, and distribute the royal weapons!”

The giant lumbered over to a cabinet, and snapped the padlock like a candy cane.  Men began queuing behind him.  Hollander swallowed hard, then proceeded to join the line.  Heaven knew what lay ahead, but he would fight if he had to to protect Phloe, and yes, even these animal-cracker chums of hers.  A wry smile tickled his lips.  Here he’d spent decades avoiding risk: the safe job, the safe house, girlfriends who never got too close—and look at him now:  barfed through the looking glass, and about to engage in hand-to-hand combat in some kind of fantasy-world sprung to life.  A knot was forming in his throat when the bird returned with more heartening news. 

“Sir!  They’ve scaled the walls!  They’re crossing the yard by the baker’s dozen!”

            Porcelino was beside himself.  “Hurry Harry!” he enjoined, and the line shuffled faster.

Next it was Hollander’s turn: he was handed a spanking new, stout-handled—bathroom plunger?  “Excuse me, sir, but are these all we have?”

            “Yes, yes,” the prince told him impatiently.  “The imperial halberds.”

            Hollander shook his head, even as a terrible pounding began against the outer door. “But—will they be effective?  Against Clench and his men?”

            “Effective?  Against maces and broadswords?  We’d be hacked to hamburger in the blink of an eye!  No, Squire, there’s no thought of fighting; these weapons are ceremonial.  We must flee, my friend, as fast as our pointy shoes shall carry us!  To the tunnel!” he howled.  “One and all!  Run for it!”

Now the fireplace swung open to reveal a passageway big enough for a Mack truck.  People poured into it as Hollander battled the tide, trying to reach Phloe.  Beyond them, the great door began to shudder in its frame as a tremendous barrage was mounted upon it.  When he was mere yards from the princess, her eyes widened and she stopped in her tracks.  “Phloe, darling!  Come along!  To the tunnel!”

“Achilles!” she cried.  “My hamster!”  Hollander’s heart sank as she veered off toward the curtained arch.  An instant later, the door gave way in a thunderous crash, and invaders began rushing through the breach.  But they weren’t like any troops he’d ever seen before.  They were—

Toads, actually.  Toads the size of frogmen, advancing with hideous, awkward strides that made wet slapping sounds on the stone flooring.  And in front, worst of all, ugly amongst uglies, loped Clench, Earl of Rimstayne, a mighty green blob with orbs the size of basketballs, swinging a spiked club to smash anything within reach. 

Harry Cheakes stood guard at the fireplace, motioning stragglers to safety.  Hollander panned from tunnel to archway; there was time enough to reach only one—he ran for the arch.  At the curtain, he paused for a final glimpse of the hall.  A squad of Floaters was assailing Cheakes; he took up a bench and felled the lot of them like so many bowling pins.  Then he too was in the tunnel and pulling the facade closed behind him.  There was confusion amongst the amphibians until Clench spotted Hollander, and thrust the club in his direction.  “Splomph!” he spat, and the toads surged forward.

            Hollander ducked behind the drapes.  He found himself in a circular anteroom with three doors at the compass-points.  Darting to the center one, he yanked it open, then raced to the rightmost, entered and shut the door behind him.  He put an ear to the wood to listen.  Sure enough, he could hear his pursuers slurping across to the decoy.  Now he bounded up the spiral staircase, praying he’d made the correct decision.  At the head of the steps, another door—this one bolted—barred his way.  Thrashing about anxiously, he thought he detected a womanly whimper.  “Phloe?  Is that you?  Let me in!”

A jiggle of latches, and she was in his arms.  “Oh, Squire,” she sobbed.  “We’re doomed!  Doomed!”  She gestured with a hamster toward the window; Hollander looked out on a courtyard packed with toads.  “First things first.  Is there another way out of here?”  But even as she pointed, the door burst open into the room.  And there, framed in the threshold, huffing and puffing and bristling with warts, tunic awash in mud and ichor (his normal state), stood Clench, Earl of Rimstayne, great club aquiver at his side.  The monster took one pie-eyed glance at the princess, and commenced to drool like an overflowing bucket.  In the next moment he was plodding her way.

            Hollander stepped between them.  Taken aback by such effrontery, the toad let fly with an oath.  “Glurmph!” it sounded like he said.  When he continued forward Hollander reared the plunger like a bat, and Clench paused again.  The animal considered the weapon, and if it’s possible for a toad to chortle, this one did so.  Then it directed a terrible blow at Hollander’s head.  Hollander ducked and the club smashed the hamster cage from its perch.  In a smooth follow-through it came again; Hollander leaned back as the spikes grazed his jersey.  On and on it went: the toad hacking and Hollander leaping clear, the furniture annihilated piece by piece.  Hollander knew that his luck couldn’t hold; sooner or later the club would connect, and then—

            When it whisked by him next, he jabbed with the plunger.  It stuck to the toad’s snout like a death mask.  For the first time, a look of uncertainty clouded his eyes.  Dropping the bludgeon, he grabbed the wooden handle and tried to detach the cup.  But Hollander kept pushing, and soon they were circling the chamber like dancers at a lunatic ball.  Hollander pushed harder to increase their speed, and at just the right moment—let go.  Clench staggered rearward, caught the edge of the windowsill and tumbled out.  There was a spine-tingling wail and a splat far below.

            The lovers rushed to embrace.  He was trying to quell her tears (a hamster mewling at his eardrum), when Floaters came storming in from either side, swords drawn.  This time, there would be no escape.  Hollander and bevy stood toe to toe when a particularly foul-smelling specimen parted blubbery lips to speak: “Oo chull glunk!” he asserted, for which Hollander was none the wiser.  The next croaker was kind enough to interpret.  “He says you’ve killed Clench, old boy.  Never liked the chap, none of us did.  Bit of a swine, really.  Good show.”  He extended a three-toed extremity and, flabbergasted, Hollander shook it.

            “Oh, Squire!” gushed the princess.  “You’re a hero!”

            “A hero,” he repeated dreamily, clacking his heels in rapture...

            ...and a knob was at his fingertips, so he slid it back and opened the door.  But he could take only baby-steps.  Blinking in a gathering sentience, he found himself in the restroom with his pants around his ankles—and he was not alone.  Rex, the janitor, was scrubbing the sinks not ten feet away from him.  He retreated quietly and closed the door.  Emerging again, he went over to wash his hands.  

            “Ah, Mr. Hollander.  How are we today, sir?”

            Hollander would have spoken, but his gaze had fallen to the hand that held the scrub brush—and a ruby the size of a pearl onion.

*   *   *

A feeling of separation.  Like there’s a pane of glass between you and the world, and it’s smeared with chicken fat.  That’s how it was for Hollander as he sat zombie-like for the rest of the workday, drove to the diner through a riot of red lights and honking horns, and ended up in bed—where it felt like he were floating.  But not in water; in some viscous black ooze that would suck him down like a mastodon if he rolled the wrong way.  But which way was right?

*   *   *

            At eleven o’clock, Mr. DeWitt passed by the cubicle.  Hollander was hunched over his papers, as he had been all morning.  The boss rapped knuckles on the metal frame until he looked around.  “My office at twelve o’clock sharp, Richard.”

            “Right, sir.  Noon it is.” 

*   *   *

            At eleven forty-five, Freddy said in a stage whisper, “Hey, Rich!  A quarter till!  Time flies when you’re having fun, huh?”  He peeked across the aisle, but saw only a white shirt-back.  Then Rex rolled by with his cleaning cart, and Hollander was up and after him—almost as if he’d been waiting for just that moment. 

            Had he made the deadline?  Freddy had to know.  He didn’t want to see Rich fired, exactly—though that could well mean a promotion.  He scurried across to the other desk.  But, what was this?  He didn’t even have the books open!  There were only drawings of—unicorns.  Unicorns everywhere!  He rubbed his chin.  Something fishy was going on here…

*   *   * 

            When Freddy entered the restroom, Rex was filling the towel dispenser, and Rich—Rich was sneaking up behind him, as if to—

            Hollander grabbed the old man in a bear hug and lifted him off his feet.  “Sorry about this, Sire, but I know you don’t remember, and I have to get you back.”  He carried his struggling charge into the last stall.  The door banged shut; there was a scuffle, a flush, and Hollander appeared alone.  Hopping on one foot, he slipped off a shoe, then the other.  “Here, Freddy, catch!”  His co-worker ducked as they hurtled his way.  “Those are what brought me back, just like Dorothy!  Only figured it out last night!  Well, give my regards to Dimwit—and enjoy that promotion!”  He shuffled sideways into the stall, and the door closed again.  Another whoosh echoed from the walls, and then there was only…silence.

            Freddy crept forward like he were crossing a minefield.  Dredging deep in a shallow pool of courage, he peered beneath the compartment door.  What he saw there would lead to a lifetime of therapy.

This story appeared initially in For Page and Screen Magazine

The Blue Funk

    “Pat and Patty, that’s so cute,” said the woman, and the realtors laughed together like bosom buddies.  Sandwiched between them on the stoop, the Llewelyns played along; they’d heard that one before.  The seller’s agent ushered everyone inside: Llewelyn, followed by Patty and the two children, with Janet Oakley, their own broker, bringing up the rear.  Llewelyn noted how everyone was careful to wipe their feet on a new doormat, though they’d only been on the flagstone walk, and it was a lovely spring day.

            Prior to their arrival, he’d urged his wife to keep a poker face during the showing.  The realtors would regard any enthusiasm as a cue to spiral down like vultures on carrion.  But the more he saw of the place, the harder it was to keep his own rule.  A cozy living room evoked Jimmy Stewart movies and hot chocolate; the kitchen could have been lifted from House Beautiful, and the sunroom in back overlooked an inviting, spacious deck.  There were even enough bedrooms for each of the kids to have their own, and him to score that office he’d always wanted. 

            “Oh, Pat, look,” said Patty, stopping in front of the bathroom.  “A clawfoot tub.”

            “Wow,” he observed—then waved fingers in front of his nose.

            “Potpourri,” said the broker.  “They must own stock in the stuff.  It’s everywhere.” 

“Mommy!  Daddy!” came a chorus.  Cyndi and Rory, eight and nine, appeared around a corner.  “Mommy!” Cyndi repeated, but she grabbed her father’s closer hand.  “It’s Bambi!”  Janet Oakley was all smiles as he was hauled to the rear of the house.  And sure enough, there it was—or there they were, for there were three of them—white-tailed deer, browsing beneath an apple tree.  But a head arose to fix him with enormous black eyes before the trio took flight, melting into the underbrush like figments of the imagination.

            “Did you see them?” Rory asked breathlessly.  Llewelyn reached out to ruffle his son’s hair.

            Cyndi’s eyes were almost as big as the deer’s.  “Can we go outside, Daddy?  Please?”  He checked with Janet, who gave him a nod.

            “O.K.,” said Llewelyn, opening the sliding glass door.  “But stay close.”  The kids flew across the deck and onto the lawn like they’d never seen grass before.  And what a lawn it was;  the house was set on two full acres, most of it flat and green—

“There’s a Sears tractor in the shed.”  The seller’s woman again, practically reading his mind.  “Included in the price.”  Ah, yes, the price: that stultifying bug in the ointment.  The owners wanted three eighty-five, but he couldn’t pay more than three and a quarter, and that was including soda deposits and a midnight raid on Rory’s piggy bank.  No way could he coax them down that far—

            “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” said Patty beside him, a wistful lilt to her voice. 

            “It really is,” he conceded.  “Let’s get out of here.”

*   *   *

            Llewelyn put in a bid that afternoon, then tried his best to forget about the house on Cypress Lane.  Though neither of them had said as much, he and his wife both assumed they’d be spending another year (or two) in their cramped, downtown apartment.  Then, after dinner on Friday night, the hall phone rang.  Llewelyn picked it up.  A chirpy tongue at the other end told him they’d gotten the house.  There was a pause.

            “What?”                 

            “The house,” Janet Oakley repeated.  “On Cypress Lane?  The owners are in a bind.  He’s taken a job in Florida and has to be there yesterday.  They’ll accept your offer of three twenty-five, but we have to sign by tomorrow.  Is that a problem?”

            “A problem?  Uh—no, not at all.”  He looked over at Patty, working on her needlepoint as she watched Jeopardy with half an eye.  “Thank you, Janet.  Talk to you tomorrow, then.  Goodbye.” 

“Honey,” he called out, already misty-eyed.  “Good news!”

*   *   *

It was three full days before anyone noticed.  Characteristically, it was Cyndi’s vigilant proboscis—always the first to flag sour milk in the fridge or a missing pair of Rory’s socks—that sounded the alarm.  “Daddy,” she yelled up the stairway.  “The bathroom smells funny.”

            Llewelyn was kneeling beside his desk, trying to make sense of a jumble of cables.  He’d gotten his monitor going, and the printer/fax, and that camera thing-ee that Rory loved so much—but where the heck did this yellow one go?

            “Daddy!”  (Shriller now, not happy with being ignored.)

            He turned his head to the doorway.  “It’s O.K., honey.  Bathrooms always smell funny.”

            “No, Daddy.  Not like this.  Come look.”

            It was a command and not a request, and Llewelyn knew that resistance was futile.  He could shout down the stairs till the cows came home, but he’d get nothing accomplished, and would end up giving in anyway…       

            “Daddy!”

            “Coming, honey!”  Struggling up on protesting joints, he picked his way gingerly through a forest of tripwires.  Just when he thought he was clear his toe caught a line, and he stumbled into the doorjamb as the monitor blinked out like he’d shot it through the heart.

*   *   *

            There was something there alright, something other than the lingering aura of the potpourri they’d already dumped.  He couldn’t say what it was, exactly, but he did know the cure.  “Just needs a good scrubbing,” he declared.  “Go round up your brother while I get the cleaning stuff, and we’ll have this place spic-and-span before Mommy gets home from shopping.”

*   *   *

            Patty scanned the yard for her son as she carried in bags of groceries.  Rory was strong enough now to be a real help, but he was nowhere in sight—and that was unexpected.  He’d practically camped on the lawn since they’d first arrived: hunting bugs, smacking Wiffle balls, and generally dashing about like he’d been raised in a box.  And in a way, maybe he had.  Apartment life was no good for children; they needed flowers and birds and sunshine.  She stopped walking a moment and let her eyes climb the maple tree at the foot of the walk.  A squirrel was up there tooling along the twigs like a high wire act.  She felt herself smile.  Maybe it wasn’t only the children who needed those things…

            “Mommy, Mommy!” sang Rory, bursting out the door.  “Wait’ll you see what we did!”  His sister emerged behind him, shushing with all her might.  “It’s supposed to be a surprise,” she hissed in frustration.

            “Rory, grab one of those bags from the car, and I’ll come see this—whatever it is.”

            Cyndi zoomed past her brother.  “Let me get one!”

            “You’re too small!”

            Patty had a vision of Fruit-Loop rainbows filling the air.  “Alright, hold it, you two.  Rory, you take the bag with the French bread, and let Cyndi have the plastic one.”  The kids took their burdens and plodded up the walk, each trying hard to conceal the effort.  Their mother looked after them with a surge of pride.   

            No sooner were the groceries on the kitchen counter than Patty was escorted to the bathroom door.  Her husband stood inside, drying his hands on a towel.  “Well?” he asked her.  “What do you think?”  She surveyed the room in amazement.  The sink and tub were as white as snow, and the faucets shone like jewelry.  Even the floor tiles, those pink and green relics she’d given up for lost, actually looked—nice.

            “Well?” Llewelyn repeated, winking at his assistants.  “How’d we do?”

            His wife put palms to her cheeks.  “My goodness!  Everything’s so beautiful!  You guys must have worked your tails off while I was gone.”  The kids nodded to each other in concurrence.  “But what,” she wondered with a sniff, “is that smell?”

*   *   *

            Llewelyn waggled painfully through the eighteen-inch opening, his spine impaled on a snaggle-toothed cinder block, and his feet dangling in space.  Where the heck was the floor?  He hated not seeing where he was going, what he was touching…  There it was, thank goodness.  Then he was inside the crawlspace and turning back to check on Rory and Cyndi, their faces bobbing in the brightly lit square like birthday balloons.

            “Made it,” he observed, waddling about in the four-foot clearance.  “That wasn’t so—”  CLUNK!  His head hit a crossbeam and he saw stars.  “Owwwww!  God—”

            “Daddy?  Are you alright?”

            Llewelyn counted to ten.  Then twenty.  “Yeah, honey,” he managed to croak.  “Just bumped my noggin.  Hand me in that flashlight, will you Cyn?”

            Armed with the triple-cell, he felt better.  A quick pan of the area showed that this wasn’t any web-festooned catacomb, but rather an intricate network of pipes and wires, suspended over a sandy floor.  Suddenly, there was a tingle of excitement: he was a spelunker, about to search his very own cave!  He crab-walked forward a ways, and was studying a drooping mass of pink insulation when he heard the children.  They were sliding through the entrance with the pliant ease of youth.

            “Wow,” said Rory, peering about in the gloom.  “This is cool!”

            Cyndi was dusting her hands.  “Ih-oo.  What is this stuff?”

            “Just sand, honey,” Llewelyn told her.  But he wasn’t so sure; he’d come down here looking for a sewage leak, or some other problem that might raise a stink.  Heaven only knew what they’d find.  Moving further into the space, he tried to orient himself with the house above.  This would be the kitchen, and over that way—   No, wait.  Left was east, so the kitchen had to be…  These stacks of cement blocks weren’t helping any.  Piers, the engineer had called them, set beneath the joists to keep the floors from rebounding.  Evidence of a summer place converted into something more substantial.  Or less deficient, if you wanted to look at it that way.  He didn’t.  This was their new home, and it beat the stuffing out of the old one, even if it was fifty years old.  With cinder blocks holding up the floorboards.  And a funny smell.  But he’d get to the bottom of that alright, even if it meant muddling around down here on his hands and knees like some kind of— 

He froze in place.  Animal.  That was the word, and it conjured up some nasty images.  First was that of a four-legged corpse: a skunk or a woodchuck, maybe even a cat or a dog that had found its way in here and never gotten out.  Sick or wounded or just plain old, and now it lay stiff and bloated and reeking away, somewhere in the darkness, somewhere close...       

But worse than that was another notion that exploded in his mind like a stink-bomb: that the crawlspace was a perfect sanctuary for anything wild.  Warm, dark, quiet and never violated—never until today, that is, when some halfwit was blundering around in its murky depths without the flashlight he’d left way over there, a guy who could turn the corner of any one of these columns, and come face to face with—

            He wasn’t frozen now, boy, but quivering in his loafers.  Because there’d been a sound, sure as heck, behind that pier off to his right.  There!  There it was again!  Something was creeping around back there, finding its footing in the sand… 

            It came at him then and he lurched away—ringing a pipe like a gong with the ball of his skull.  The world went white and when it cleared again, there were two green eyes above a cherubic grin.  “Did I scare you, Daddy?” Rory giggled.

*   *   *

            When Llewelyn arrived home from work, he gave a shout out to the kids (unanswered),  crawled with Patty on the livingroom carpet (for Legos), went through his mail, and glanced at the newspaper before visiting the bathroom.  He scowled in anticipatory disgust before even encountering the funk, a redolence he could now detect above any spray, candle, sachet, or plug-in doodad on the market.  And yet, as he stood there at the sink washing his hands, it almost seemed as if... 

            A grin was dawning on the man in the mirror.  Was it possible?  Could it be?  Gone.  It was definitely gone!  He practically skipped across the house to tell Patty, but she didn’t seem to share in his enthusiasm.  “Take a stroll through the sunroom,” she said cryptically, and continued to harvest crayons from under the coffee table.  He hovered there a moment before doing as she’d suggested.  One step across the threshold, and he drew up like he’d hit a wall.  It was here alright—that same darned smell—and strong, strong as it had been in the bathroom at least.  But how in the world...

            Cyndi tripped past him now with her brother in tow, their voices raised in song: “Rinky-house, dinky-house, dirty-yucky-stinky-house...”  As they scampered outside through the sliding glass door, Llewelyn felt himself deflating.  Stinky house?

*   *   *

            “Thanks for coming by on a Saturday, Mr. Eifler.  We really appreciate it.”

            “No problem, ma’am.  I know how aggravating these things can be.  I’ll just grab my knee pads from the car, and we’ll take a look.” 

            Llewelyn followed along.  “I’ll come with you, Bill.”  It had been Patty’s idea to contact the engineer who’d inspected their house for the bank.  They’d both liked the guy, and he had identified several minor issues that they never would have spotted on their own.  “I checked out the crawlspace myself.  And everywhere else I could think of: attic, closets, behind the appliances, but I didn’t find anything.  What’s weird is—it moves.  I mean, I know that sounds crazy, but we first noticed the smell in the bathroom, and now it’s coming from the rear of the house, in the sunroom.”

            “That’s not as strange as you might think, Pat.  We’re talking about a gas here, from whatever source, and gases’ll float all over the place, depending on temperature, density, a whole range of things.”

            Llewelyn nodded.  He couldn’t bring himself to mention the other peculiarity; that the odor they were tracking wasn’t like sewage or oil or some household chemical whose presence could be expected.  No, he and the wife were in complete agreement now, after extensive sampling, that it was actually more like...  A lot like...  Exactly like…  Freshly cooked asparagus—

            “But don’t you worry, Pat,” said their expert confidently.  “Whatever it is, I’ll find it.”

*   *   *  

            “Well, whatever it is, I can’t find it,” Bill Eifler sighed.  “I’ve been over your house with a fine-tooth comb, and I don’t see any problem.  Of course, I’m only a general engineer; you could still call in a plumber if you like.  But the drains are flowing and the traps look good, and I didn’t see a hint of a leak anywhere.”  He tamped at his brow with a handkerchief as Pat and Patty exchanged a glance.  “Also looked for vermin infestations—mice, bats, termites, things like that.  Clean as a whistle.  To be honest with you, I’ve covered every square inch of your place today, and the only thing I can smell is that asparagus you’re having for dinner.”

*   *   *

            Asparagus oficinalis was not, in fact, on the menu that evening.  Patty didn’t like the stuff, and her husband was indifferent; when they got around to considering the question, it was decided that they had not prepared this particular vegetable even once in eleven blissful years of matrimony.  But the odor had to come from somewhere.  Could it have wafted in from somebody else’s stovetop?  Llewelyn forced himself to interview the neighbors, though after the second or third door was closed politely but firmly in his face, he was certain that he would forever bear the mantle of the village loon.         

            His next move was to research the organism, sufficient at least to determine that there were no vast fields of the mitered weed thriving in adjacent woods, or even the odd, pesky stalk amongst the begonias.  This avenue of inquiry having fizzled out like the rest, Llewelyn took Eifler’s advice and called in a plumber.  A pair of them, actually.  Also a handyman, an electrician, an exterminator, the boiler guy, and a second engineer.  All the professionals came to the same conclusion: there was nothing wrong with the house anywhere.

            Meanwhile, things were going wrong with Llewelyn.  He was more and more exhausted, but getting less and less sleep.  He’d begun to think of the stench as a sentient entity that vied with him for control of the Castle.  Something like The Blob, only more insidious for its invisibility.  He’d lie awake nights wondering where it was, where it would loom by morning.  Because it roamed freely now from room to room, like an old dog trying to get comfortable.  He’d been heartened at first by its disappearance from an area, until he realized that it would always turn up somewhere else.  From then on, its apparent absence would elicit only dread, causing him to pause at every doorway, wondering if that next stride would plunge him headlong into its suffocating embrace.  Patty took matters better than he did, accepting and adapting in her womanly wisdom to a new and unchanging paradigm.  To the children, it was simply a joke, an oddity to laugh about and be kidded over at school.

            But to Llewelyn, it was no joke.  To him, it was a threat.  An enemy.  Something to be hunted down like a rabid beast and destroyed.  And he would destroy it, too, he vowed, staring up at the ceiling fan in the wee small hours, nostrils flaring unconsciously...

*   *   *

            “Artie Benson,” said the fellow with the sun-bronzed face, and Llewelyn hesitated before taking his hand.  He was a septic tank man, after all, up to his armpits each day in—his work.

            “When’s the last time you had ‘er pumped out?”

            “I haven’t.  Just bought the place this year.”

            Benson pulled on a pair of thick rubber gloves, and extracted a shovel from the rear of his truck.  “Good idea to get ‘er done.  Then you know where you stand.”  The two men headed into the backyard, and Llewelyn pointed out the spot where he’d been told the septic tank reposed.  Benson probed with the shovel till he got a telltale thump.  Then he scraped away a few inches of grass and topsoil, and removed a concrete cover by its protruding iron handles. 

            “Need some help?  That looks heavy.”

            “Nah,” said Benson, setting the lid aside.  “Twenty pounds.”

            They stood shoulder to shoulder for a moment, peering into the yawning black maw.  Then Benson made for the hose reel on his rig while Llewelyn leaned down a bit, sniffing.  Detecting nothing, he leaned further, then further still, until…  Whew!  He popped back up and skittered to safety.  He’d gotten a snoot-full that time, alright.  But it was only, well—sewage.

            “Gonna be close, but she’ll make it,” observed Benson, arriving with a red serpent tucked under an arm.  He snaked one end into the pit.  “You might want to stand back some.  There can be splashin’.”

            “I’ll do better than that,” said Llewelyn, striding for the house.  “Give me a yell when you’re done.”

*   *   *

            Benson had the truck in reverse and a boot sliding off the clutch pedal before Llewelyn could bring himself to speak.  There was nothing the matter with his septic system—he’d known that going in—but this was the very last soul he could think of to ask for assistance.  “Artie,” he spluttered desperately, clamping hands onto the window frame like a life-preserver.  “There’s something I need to talk to you about.”

            Ten minutes later he came to a stop.  He’d laid it all out in gruesome detail, the entire saga from beginning to end.  Benson had remained mute beyond the rhythmic working of his chewing gum.  “I understand it’s out of your line,” Llewelyn concluded, his imploring face almost inside the cab now, “but if there’s anything you can come up with, anything at all, I can’t tell you how grateful…”  His voice trailed off pathetically.

            Benson looked at him for a time in silence.  Then he dislodged a pencil from behind one ear, scrawled something onto his billing pad, tore off the sheet, and handed it to Llewelyn.  “Don’t tell him I sent you,” he said.  Then the truck was rolling backwards, and was gone.

*   *   *

            Rory was excavating a colony of ants with one of Daddy’s brand-new screwdrivers.  “Not far from here, as the crow flies,” said Llewelyn, watching his son through the window.  “Maybe two miles.  But it took me almost an hour to find the house.  If you can call it that.”

            Patty stopped kneading her meatloaf.  “What do you mean?”

            “It was more of a shack, really.  Shingles missing, moss on the roof, plastic sheeting over the windows.  Hardly seemed habitable, but I checked the number three times before I left my note.”

            “I don’t like this, Pat.  A strange name on a slip of paper…”

            Llewelyn turned to face her.  “I know, honey.  But we have to do something.  I’m at my wit’s end here, and—”

            DING-DONG. 

“Did you hear a car?”  Patty shook her head as her husband went to the door.  When he opened it, he considered slamming it again and throwing the bolt.  There was some weirdo out there; a vagrant, maybe, or one of those holy-roller types.  Long gray hair, headband, hooked nose—he looked like a Hollywood Indian after a bender.  He had on a tie-dyed tee shirt, and a tangle of chains and pendants around a wattled neck.  Then it clicked.  Not an Indian, but a hippie, that’s what he was.  An ancient, freeze-dried flower child.  But something was happening now: a slow-motion contortion of the face.  Teeth appeared—a dingy palisade with one pale missing—and the rheumy blue eyes seemed to focus in on him for the first time.  Suddenly, Llewelyn realized the man was smiling.

            “Howdy, Patrick.  My name’s Smithereen Johnson.  I got your message.”

*   *   *

            Cyndi gazed rapturously into the balmy night sky.  Above her head, Johnson’s crooked index finger limned another constellation.  “And that there’s Capricorn.  The goat.  Cold and rational.  That’ll be your daddy’s sign, I’ll wager.”  Llewelyn shivered as the creature glanced his way.  That was his sign.  How could he know that?

            “Where’s mine?” Cyndi asked him.  “I’m Aquarius.”

            Johnson tilted his chair back on two legs.  Llewelyn was sure it would scoot out from under him and dump him on his head.  Could he sue me for that? he wondered.

            “We can’t see yours this time o’ year, honey,” Johnson explained.  “Nor mine, neither.  I’m a fish.  A Pisces.  We’re good at solving mysteries, that’s why I was able to help you folks out today.”  He plucked another cigarette from the pack in his pocket.

            Llewelyn smirked.  You had to give the old coot credit; he had one heck of an act. Since he’d shown up at the house this afternoon, he’d trotted out every mystical hokum known to man, from Haitian voodoo to Feng Shui.  They’d used magnets and power crystals, drawn pentagrams in chalk, consulted the Runes, and mumbled complicated incantations while he twirled like a dervish on the living room rug.  The kids ate it up, of course, and Johnson took full advantage.  Just when Llewelyn was ready to give him the boot, the man had found ‘gold coins’ behind each of their ears, and related solemnly that they were from Captain Kidd’s own treasure chest.  They’d looked up all wide-eyed at Daddy, whose resolve had vanished like the pea in a shell game.  Not only was Johnson not evicted, but he’d ended up joining them for meatloaf—and a cold beer to wash it down. 

            The sliding glass door opened now, and Rory appeared with a bottle of Sam Adams Ale, and Llewelyn’s special frosted mug from the freezer.  His father’s expectant smile curdled as his son passed him by to deliver them to Johnson.  “Here you are, Uncle Smithereen.  It’s the last one.”

            The…last one?  Llewelyn was still nursing his first.  He squinted into the shadows beneath Johnson’s chair, trying to count the empties.  Two, three—no, four—

            “That’s all I could want, young feller.”  Johnson poured out the amber brew lovingly, then raised his mug for a toast.  “Here’s to—” he began, then paused to suppress a belch.  “Here’s to my swell new friends: Rory and Cyndi, Patty and Patrick.  The Llewelyns!  May the forest numen forever fertilize your bountiful garden.  May Princess Gaia shine her golden globes—”

            “Smithereen?” said Patty.  “You never told us about your name.  You were going to explain how you got it.”

            “Oh, yeah,” he remembered, his eyes falling to the citronella candle.  “I get asked about that a lot.”  He scratched his chin for a moment, then looked up.  “Well, gather round, children,” he directed, beckoning them forward with both of his arms, “and hear the tale.”  Rory and Cyndi immediately plunked down cross-legged at his feet.  Johnson waited.  Clearly he had the bigger children in mind as well.  Llewelyn and Patty traded a look, then slid their chairs closer to the Man of Mystery.

            Johnson stared deep into the dancing flame, and scratched himself some more, this time below the left clavicle.  “Picture if you will, a simple stone dwelling set off by itself in the rollin’ English countryside, long, long ago.  A farmhouse it was.  Built the way they made ‘em back then, of fieldstones dug from the land around it, mortared together with thick red clay, and topped with a good thatch roof of heather and straw. 

“A family with lots of youngins lived in that house, all of ‘em together in the one single room.  They didn’t have much money, this family, none at all for going into town and buyin’ nice stuff for themselves, fancy bonnets and buckle shoes and whatnot.  They didn’t have no gold doubloons, like some folks we know.”  His gaze fell to Cyndi and Rory, who giggled. 

            “But they weren’t exactly poor, neither, this family.  Hog farmers, they was, and proud of it, with a pen chock-full of plump pink sows, a randy boar to service ‘em, and a hectare each of oats and barley grain.  Even a sway-back ol’ mule.  So they always had plenty o’ grub for themselves and fodder for the livestock, and they could fashion most o’ the other stuff they needed, say, a new pine bucket to fetch water from the well, or a birch tree split into rails for the fence, or maybe a slingshot, or a cute lil’ dolly o’ sackcloth and wool for one o’ the nippers.  And if they got to wantin’ somethin’ else bad enough, somethin’ they couldn’t snatch from nature’s bounty with their own two hands, well, then the daddy—he was a big ol’ mountain of a dude with shoulders this wide and a barrel chest to match—why, he’d go into that lean-to where he kept those special tools o’ his, and root out a dimple-worn sharpenin’ stone he had in there, and his good ol’ trusty, double-crescent axe, and he’d set to work honin’ up both sides of that sucker till you could’ve parted a baby’s silken—uh, ‘scuse me here a little minute.”

            Johnson picked up his mug of beer, took a long leisurely pull at it, set it down again and wiped his mouth with the back of a hand.  Llewelyn checked his watch.

            “Now, where was I?”

            “He was sharpening up the axe!” Rory reminded.

            “Right you are.  You’re a clever young buck, ain’t ya?  I’ll bet you’re a whiz with figures.”

            “He is very good in math,” Patty allowed, smiling.  Llewelyn let out a sigh.

            “I knew it!  O.K.  So anyhow, that big ol’ daddy fella, he’d buff them blades till they shone like silver, then he’d go around back to the pen, pick out a likely candidate from that bunch o’ sows in there, and—well, let’s just say he’d dress ‘er up for market.  Then he’d yoke his ol’ mule to the wagon, climb on board and set off for town, about six miles yonder.  Now, that doesn’t sound like a far stretch to you and me, what with our big ol’ motor-cars and such, but back in them olden times, that was a whole day’s trek there and back, not to mention negotiatin’ pork-meat prices with the grocer fella, and roundin’ up them sundry items you can only get with cash money, like coffee and salt and nails, and a trinket or two for the missus—he couldn’t forget that, no siree, not if he wanted any peace in the premises when he lugged his duff on home again.  Likely a few o’ them colorful glass beads she liked to string together for herself and the girls, or maybe a tortoise shell comb for that purty brown hair o’ hers.  Then there’d be watering the mule at the horses’ trough, and checkin’ for any chums as might be hangin’ in the saloon—or, pub, that’s what they call ‘em in the ol’ country.  There’s a lot o’ words they use that’s different from ours.  They say lift when they mean elevator, and lorry for truck, and a bathroom is a loo.  They seem to favor them ‘L’ words, for some reason.  Used to call ‘em ‘Limeys’ durin’ the war, and that’s another ‘L’ word, but I don’t think them Brits’d be any too happy ‘bout—”

            “Excuse me,” said Patty, “I’m sorry to interrupt, but it’s getting kind of late, and the children have to—”

            “Got it,” said Johnson, holding up a finger.  “We’ll make ‘er quick.”  He turned back to the kids.  “Well, to make a long story longer, the daddy, that great big ol’ galoot with the barrel chest and them broad shoulders, who lived on that farm with the mule and them pigs and whatnot, well, his name was John.  And when the boys grew up, each one of them was a son of this John, or one of John’s sons.  A John-son.  And forever after, all the children that was born to them, and to their children, and to their children’s children, and so on, all the way down the line to my own pappy, and then to yours truly sittin’ right here tonight, we all been called Johnson, lo these many years.” 

            A beat passed before Llewelyn leaned forward.  “Actually, Mr. Johnson, I believe Patty was inquiring about your first name.  About Smithereen.”

            “Aw, shoot,” chuckled Johnson.  “Your guess is as good as mine on that one, Patrick.  The parents was such goofballs—”      

            “Alright,” said Llewelyn, getting to his feet.  “Time to go.”

*   *   *

            At the front door, Johnson turned back.  “Now, about my fee, Patrick—”

            “Your—fee?  Fee for what, exactly?”

            “Why, for aid and comfort, o’course.  For services rendered.”  A hiccup escaped him, but he seemed not to notice.  “That smell of yours.  She’s eradicated.  Go ahead and check, I’ll wait.”

            Llewelyn took the man by the elbow and ushered him onto the stoop.  “No thanks, friend.  I’ll take your word for it.  You, uh—you send me your bill.” 

Johnson seemed to reflect on that as he stumbled down the steps.  “Okey-doke.  Guess that’ll work.”  He stooped to retrieve a bicycle lying on its side in the grass, mounted it, and wobbled away squeakily into the night.  “Hasta lumbago,” he called over his shoulder.

*   *   *

            Patty had her arms around him before he could put his briefcase down.  “Well, if it isn’t my hero!” she gushed.  “My knight in shining armor!  Calling in Mr. Johnson was a stroke of genius, honey!  Everything’s back to normal again!  Isn’t it wonderful?” 

Llewelyn tried to match her grin, but failed.  In fact, he was a little bit annoyed to be getting the confirmation.  It wasn’t that he didn’t want the smell to be gone, gosh knew; he’d wanted little else for as long as he could remember.  But for that sleazebag to get the credit—that was almost worse than the stink. 

When he’d made the tour last night and found nothing in the office (where their vaporous bane had tarried most recently), or anywhere else in the house, he had definitely gotten the creeps.  It wasn’t Johnson, of course; it couldn’t be that crackpot and his jibber-jabber.  The departure was a coincidence and nothing more.  If it really was gone, that is, and he wasn’t convinced.  He loosened his tie, slipped off his suit jacket and draped it over a chair.  As he began to prowl the dining room, sniffing into corners like a hound, Patty rolled her eyes and headed for the kitchen.

No, sir, he was not convinced.  Not by a long shot.  

*   *   *

            By midnight, he was convinced but good: the Reek of Ages was history.  It continued to be gone the following day, and the one after that, until an entire week had elapsed and he was beginning to sleep nights all the way through.  On Saturday afternoon, when Smithereen Johnson arrived for a second unannounced visit, Llewelyn was almost glad to see him.  The guy might be phoney as a wooden nickel, but at least his shenanigans were concurrent with a happy event, and he had provided an evening’s entertainment.  One, however, was quite enough.

            “So, then, Johnson, how are you?” Llewelyn queried.  It was all he got out before the man had slithered past him into the house.

            “I’m swell, Patrick,” he replied with a holey grin.  Today he wore a peasant’s smock studded in rhinestones, and a zebra-striped headband.  “But the real question is—how’s that squatter you was complainin’ about?”

            “You mean the smell?  It’s gone without a trace.  Can you believe it?”

            “Oh, I can believe it, alright.”

            Cyndi and Rory came harmonizing down the stairs.  “Uncle Smithereen!”

            “Howdy there, munchkins!”  Then his face grew serious.  “You’ve kept your lips buttoned about ol’ Cap’n’ Kidd’s booty, I hope?”

            They nodded to each other gravely.  “Show us a trick, Uncle Smithereen,” urged Rory.  “Please?”

            Johnson stroked his chin.  “Let’s see now—”

            “Mr. Johnson can’t stay,” said Llewelyn smartly.

            “Can’t I?”

            “’Fraid not, pal.  Not this time.”

            Johnson wedged blue-nailed fingertips into the fraying pocket of his jeans.  “Well, I reckon I’ll just give ya this, then,” he said and, producing a crumpled slip of paper, proceeded to iron it flattish against his chest before handing it over.

            Llewelyn took one look and started to laugh.  “ ‘Magical Mantras,’ ” he quoted, “ninety dollars.  ‘Celtic Spells,’ two-fifty.  A hundred for ‘Funneling Forces’—”  He had to stop to catch his breath.  “Oh, this is priceless, Johnson.  Though you do have a price, don’t you.  And it’s a doozy!  Four thousand, six hundred and seventy-five smackers.  And me without a coupon!”  The kids joined in the merriment now, even if they didn’t quite get the gist.  Patty watched her husband turn fire-engine red from non-stop cackling.  “But there’s no sales tax,” Llewelyn observed.  “You’re not a tax cheat, are you, Johnson?”

            “Don’t believe in it.  Against my principals.”

            “Uh-huh,” Llewelyn acknowledged gamely.  “Mine too.  Say, seriously, this statement’s a hoot.  Can I keep this?”

            “Sure,” said Johnson.  “That there’s your copy.  All I need is cash money.  Or you can write me out one o’ them purty checks o’ yours with the bunnies on ‘em, if that’s more to your likin’.  Wouldn’t take one from just anybody, but the truth is, Patrick, I trust ya.”

            “A personal check.  In the amount of...”  He consulted the bottom line.  “Forty-six hundred and seventy-five dollars.”

            “That’s about the size of it.”

            Llewelyn waited in vain for his smile to be retuned, glancing at Patty for support.  She hunched her shoulders.  “You’re a real joker, Johnson, let me tell you.”

            Johnson made a sort of clicking sound with his tongue.  “That ain’t no joke, Patrick.  That’s what you owe me.  Forty-six seventy-five.”

            “You’re kidding,” said Llewelyn, not smiling now.

            “Not kidding,” said Johnson.

            “Get out,” said Llewelyn. 

            Johnson’s eyes, while not exactly flashing, shed a portion of their dullness.  “I’ll go when I have my money.”

            “You’ll go now,” Llewelyn corrected.  “Voluntarily or otherwise.”  He took a step forward.

            Johnson peered left and right—then bolted for the living room.  “Pat!” called Patty as her husband charged after him.  “Pat, be careful!”  By the time she reached the doorway, he had the old man in a bear hug.

            Johnson began yelling as he was lifted from the floor.  “Presto!  Bingo!  Ooga booga!”  Then he was carried across the carpet waving arms and legs, like a lobster headed for the pot. 

On the stoop, Llewelyn released him  “Now get out of here, you dingbat!  And don’t you come back again!”  Johnson took a moment to recover his composure, brushing his hair back and arranging the chains he wore with a sound like distant sleigh bells.  Then he descended the steps to a prostrate bicycle, which, in the light of day, Llewelyn could see was so mangled and rusted he was surprised that it held the man’s weight.

            Rory leaned out of the doorway.  “Bye, Uncle Smithereen!” he called, and his father glared down at him.  Johnson raised a hand as he trundled away.  Watching him go, an unsettling thought occurred to Llewelyn: how had he known about the design on their checks?

*   *   *

            Sunday morning found Pat and Patty relaxing on the deck over mugs of hot coffee, he with his travel section, and she with her mystery.  He had just looked up from an article on Polynesian resorts, and was trying to morph their apple tree into a coconut palm when Cyndi called out from a bedroom window.

            “When do we get popcorn?” she wanted to know.

            Her mother was twirling a lock of hair absently.  “Popcorn?  You haven’t had your lunch yet.”

            Rory chimed in in support of his sister.  “But we smell it, Mommy.  Who’s making popcorn?”

            The apple tree was changing, alright, but not into a palm—into a hook-nosed ogre with bloodshot eyes.  Llewelyn was up like a jack-in-the-box and bounding for the house.  Patty took longer to connect the dots.  By the time she’d reached the foot of the staircase, her husband was already trudging back down again, looking ashen and shell-shocked. 

            It was there alright, in the linen closet: popcorn where there was no popcorn, strong enough to make your mouth water. 

            “Sweetheart?” she asked him carefully.  “Are you O. K.?”

            Llewelyn was in another world.  Thirty-five hundred, he was thinking.  And not one penny more…

This story first appeard in Poydras Review.

Needles

“What’s wrong, Daddy?” asked Calandra.  Her father was watching a commercial that she knew he hated, with a bunch of happy sick people on some funny-sounding medicine, and then a list of the horrible side-effects that could happen if you took it.  He said these commercials only made people sicker by getting them to worry all the time, and he’d always change the channel when one of them came on.  But maybe he wasn’t watching it.  Maybe he was looking at the reflection of Christmas tree bulbs on the TV screen.  When it was off they were really pretty—like colorful, blinking snowballs in a big black picture frame, but when it was on they were fainter and stranger looking, like angels or aliens, floating in the background.

            “He got fired from the funeral home,” her brother whispered.  The twins were sitting cross-legged on the living room carpet, between their parents in the twin armchairs.

“Now, Kyril,” said Deborah, “don’t you start spreading rumors like that.  Your father and Uncle Felix just had a little disagreement, is all.”

            “I got fired,” said Gaston, still staring at the television.  His wife let out a sigh.

            “I told you,” hissed Kyril. 

“Why’d you get fired, Daddy?”

“Uncle Felix and I had a little disagreement.”

            Deborah clapped her hands.  “So.  Who wants popcorn?”  

“I do, I do!” came a chorus.

Kyril wanted to know if they could put salt on it.

“Of course not,” said Calandra.  “Salt will kill you.”

Her brother giggled.  “Then Dad’ll have to bomb us!”

“The word’s embalmed,” said Deborah.  “And it’s salty enough as it is.  Now you two come to the kitchen and be my assistants.” 

The kids were up in a jiffy, though Calandra paused in the doorway to observe her father.  She noticed that the lights of the Christmas tree were reflecting off his bald spot, just like the TV screen.  “You come too, Daddy, and help.”

      “Now, Cally,” said her mother, brushing her own dark hair back with her fingers, though both of her children were towheads (a recessive trait, according to Gaston).  “Let your father relax.  He’s had a rough day.”  But a moment later they heard him coming.  While Kyril grabbed the popcorn, Calandra the special bowl, and Deborah a pitcher of Koolaid from the refrigerator, he passed them by for the liquor cabinet and a bottle of Old Grand-Dad. 

His wife gave him a look.  “Go easy on that, Gas,” she said.  “You hardly touched your dinner.”

*   *   *

            With their ten-year-olds tucked away in bed, Deborah decided it was time to broach the subject.  She carried her diet Pepsi into the living room and set it down beside her husband’s glass on the coffee table.  Far from drinking to excess as she’d feared, he’d been nursing the same Bourbon-and-water for over an hour now.  He was standing behind the couch at the Christmas tree, tinkering with the ornaments.  “Tell me what happened.”

            “I flunked out of medical school, that’s what happened.  Then I switched to mortuary science.  That was my second mistake.  We’d go into business together, my father said.  He and his brother and son.  A family dynasty, he called it.  We’d be rich.  Then his heart exploded, and I ended up with Felix.”  He paused here to remove an ornament, shift it about an inch and re-hang it. 

            Deborah kept her voice down.  Right now, she wanted nothing more than to keep her husband calm.  Everything else would fall into place eventually.  “But we are rich, dear.  I mean, by most standards.  We have a three-bedroom house, our children go to a nice school, and we have a good jump on their college fund.  Or at least, we did…”  She could have slapped herself.  How could she be so stupid?  But he didn’t seem to have heard her.  He was unscrewing one of the light bulbs, and switching it with another one: red for blue.

            “I love this tree,” he said, a catch in his voice.  “The whole concept of it.  Imagine, bringing a real pine tree into your home, and adorning it with all these beautiful objects.  A tradition dating back centuries.  Just smell it, Debbie.  Drink in that scent!”  (It made her a little nauseous, actually.  Especially now when it was dying…) 

            “Do you know what that is?” he asked, pointing to a decoration.  Of course she did: the tiny bottle, banded in silver, held one of Calandra’s baby teeth.  Or maybe Kyril’s; the two  of them were identical, other than the initial etched in the glass.  “It’s Cally’s baby tooth.  There’s an ornament from the year they were born, and another one from every year after that that we picked out together, as a family.  This giraffe is from our trip to the Bronx zoo, and that anchor’s from Mystic Seaport.  There’s even a miniature tennis racket from our lessons at the club.  It’s all here, Debbie, our entire lives, on this one organic monument.” 

He turned to her cheerfully.  But even as she watched, the expression slid from his face like melting candle wax, and something else took hold.  Something frightening.  He looked at her blankly for a moment, but it wasn’t her that he was seeing, she was sure of it.  Then he walked around the end of the couch, picked up his highball, drank it off, and contemplated the glass in his hand before winging it into the fireplace.

            “Gaston!  Control yourself!  You’ll wake the children!”

            He dropped into a chair.  “Sorry.  I was thinking of my uncle.  The swine.”

            “You still haven’t told me what happened.”

            His gaze arose to the Christmas tree bulb light-show on the blackened television.  “He’s the polar opposite of my father, Debbie.  The man has no conscience.  No scruples.  He’s colder than one of the stiffs.  And he cheats our customers.  Poor people.  Old people.  People who can’t afford it, who’re weak and confused in a time of loss.  Talks them into things.  Floral arrangements fit for a king.  Caskets made of teak and mahogany that cost as much as a triple bypass.  Then, after the ceremony comes the coup de grâce.  He covers the box with a velvet shroud.  Free of charge, he tells them.  Only it’s rayon, and the coffin’s become a cheap pine veneer.

            “And that’s not the worst of it.  Do you remember Major Armstrong, the war hero?  The one who got the police escort out to Oakwood Cemetery?”  He looked over to catch her nod. “The family had stipulated that we bury him in uniform with all of his medals.  A common request for veterans.  Anyway, Felix botched it.  Put the uniform on Flannagan, the barber.  I was away on a house call, or I would have stopped him.  He was drunk, Debbie.  He drinks every day now in the afternoons.  Gin.  You can smell it on him when he forgets his Altoids.  Anyhow, I was checking up on things before the service, like I always do, and it was only by chance that I noticed.  The major had a deformity, a pinky that angled sharply inward.  I happened to glance at it while I was making my adjustments, and it was straight as a pin.  Then, on a hunch, I went over to Flannagan.  And there it was.  The finger.  It took me a minute to figure it out.  He’d switched their heads, Debbie.  The man had taken a bone saw, and… 

“Well, the ceremony was minutes away.  I hid the pinky under the other hand, that was easy enough, but then I noticed how the neck was—well, I don’t want to be gruesome, here.  Let’s just say that it didn’t look natural.  And we were out of time, you understand; the bereaved would be arriving any second.  Then it struck me.  There was a hankie, a big silk thing with his regimental insignia on it that we’d tucked into a pocket.  I managed to get it wrapped around him like an aviator’s scarf.  It worked like a charm.  During the service, the son told me discreetly that it wasn’t supposed to be like that, but that he approved anyway.  Said it gave him a kind of swagger, and he thanked me.

            “When it was over, I had it out with Felix.  It got pretty heated.  He reminded me that even though the Dubonnet brothers had founded the home together, he was now its sole proprietor.  Then I got the heave-ho.”

            “Did you slug him, Dad?”  Kyrils’s voice jerked their heads around.  The children were in their pajamas, watching from the foot of the staircase.

            “Kyril, Calandra,” their mother said sternly.  “What are you two doing there?”

            “We heard a bang.  It woke us up.”

            Their father approached the archway.  “I’m afraid I lost my temper.  I apologize.  Everything’s fine now.  And to answer your question, Son, no, I didn’t slug him.  That’s not how we solve our problems.  Now, you go back to bed, please.  There won’t be any more banging tonight.  I promise.”

*   *   *

            Normally, they bought their Christmas tree from Green Valley Nursery in mid December and decorated it that same night, fortified by hot chocolate and hot toddies, to the accompaniment of a crackling fire (the Dubonnet version of the Yule Log—vestige of an ancient Germanic rite involving human sacrifice, according to Gaston), and carols on the stereo.  The tree would remain in the living room until the weekend after New Years, when Daddy would denude it of lights and ornaments (which he insisted on doing himself, so that they were repackaged according to his own fastidious specifications), and then he and the kids would drag the remains ceremoniously through dining room, kitchen and sunroom onto the lawn, and a furlong or so into the woods to a certain stretch of stone wall, where, coaxed to the far side by team effort, it would join its forerunners in the Christmas Tree Burial Ground.

            This year, things had gone differently.  Gaston had lost his job in the interval between the holidays, and seemed disinclined to do much more than to take long walks up and down the road, shovel snow (digging the expected paths to bird feeder and oil tank, and then branching off into maze-like passages to nowhere—a pursuit in which the children had participated eagerly until the cold and the futility had driven them inside to watch their driven father from the windows), and fiddle around with the Christmas tree, which, now in the third week of January, had long since stopped drinking water (though he persisted in checking the level beneath the skirt several times a day), and was instead shedding needles onto the carpet like an old dog shed hair, which he’d gather up with a dustpan, and deposit into the trash.

            Deborah had tried to speed things along.  “Dear,” she would suggest to his back as he moved an ornament up or down or sideways, or swapped a regular bulb with a blinking one, or relocated a bit of tinsel to a nearby offshoot, “Don’t you think it’s about time for us to take down the tree?” to which he would reply with a grunt or a murmur, or sometimes not at all.

            Today, however, he had surprised her.  He came around the couch to encircle her with an arm.  “Just look at it, darling.  Isn’t it gorgeous?  I love our Christmas tree, this Christmas tree, more than any one we’ve ever had.  It’s proof, Debbie.  Proof that things don’t have to change, that they can just go on and on as steady and true as always.”  He gave her a kiss then, and a pat on the bottom, and she was beginning to consider how long they’d have before the school bus arrived when he was back at it, buffing each blown-glass sphere with one of her dustcloths.

            Later on—or maybe it was the next day, or the one after that—who could keep track anymore? Calandra had come into the kitchen while she was preparing vegetables.  Her daughter leaned elbows on the marble island and watched her mother with those piercing blue eyes as she chopped her onions and carrots and celery.  Kyril had the same eyes, of course—the exact same eyes genetically—but Cally’s had always seemed different somehow, with a quality that allowed them to see inside of you, as if she were reading your thoughts.  At times, Deborah found the effect disconcerting.  

            “Where’s Daddy?”

            “Upstairs, polishing his shoes.  He likes to keep them ship-shape, in case there’s a…”

            “Funeral?”  Her mother ignored that, and continued slicing.  Calandra stole a bit of carrot, and popped it in her mouth.  “Is Daddy going crazy?”

            Deborah looked up.  “No, sweetheart.  Your father is not going crazy.”

            “How do you know?”

            “How do I know?  Because—because when someone goes crazy, they—well, they do crazy things, and you can tell.  That’s how.”

            Her daughter thought about that while she chewed.  Then she made an about-face, and marched upstairs to her parents’ bedroom.  Gaston sat at the foot of the bed, a shoe-shine kit in front of him, and several pairs of wingtips, brown and black, fanned out in a gleaming crescent.  Calandra approached him and held out a hand.  “Come with me, Daddy,” she said.  “There’s something we have to do.”

            He looked up at her vaguely.  “What?”

            “Right now.  We’re going to take the tree down.”

            “What?  The tree?”

            “Right now, Daddy.  Or I’ll scream.”

            “What?  Don’t scream, honey.  Why would you scream?”

            “Right now, Daddy.”  She wiggled the hand.  Her father looked around confusedly, then grasped it and stood up.  She led him down the hallway to the next room.  Her brother was playing a video game on his laptop computer.  “Kyril, come with us.  We’re going to take the tree down.”

            “No way.  I’m fighting the Gorgon.”

            “Daddy, tell him to come.  Right now, please.”

            Gaston looked down at the blazing blue eyes, then over at his son.  “Come on, Kyril, let’s go.  Or Cally’ll scream.”

            “Huh?  Why would she scream?”

            “Let’s go, I said.  Right now.”

            Calandra did not, in fact, scream.  What she did do was to herd her father and brother into the living room, where they unplugged the lights on the Christmas tree and dismantled the decorations—stowing everything away just-so according to Gaston’s instructions—as her mother watched in amazement.  Then they put on their hats and coats and mittens, and trudged through the snowy woods to the Christmas Tree Burial Ground, where their friend was laid to rest beside his predecessors—in progressive states of decay, like a series of time-lapse photographs.

            Soon, Kyril and Calandra, famished from their exertions, were stuffing themselves with sphagetti and meatballs, while Deborah partook with lady-like decorum, and Gaston pushed his own around like a child avoiding the Brussels sprouts.  For dessert, Kyril requested ice cream.

            “Oh, I’m sorry, honey.  There isn’t any.”

            The boy was crestfallen until inspiration struck.  “Can we go for ice cream, Dad?  To Carvel?  Please oh please oh please?  Can we?”  His father looked to Calandra for help, but she was on the other team.

            “That’s a great idea, Gas,” Deborah piled on.  “A trip into town would do you a world of good.”

“You think so?” 

“A world of good, Daddy!  Please?  Please?” 

The next thing Gaston knew, he was behind the wheel of their SUV and tooling down Main Street in the winter darkness, the lampposts still dressed in their plastic wreaths and snowflakes.  Kyril posed a query from the back seat.

            “How do you bomb somebody, Dad?”

            His sister huffed.  “It’s em-balmed,” she corrected haughtily.

            “You pickle them,” said his father.  “On the inside.”  Then he was making a right as he had a thousand times, and stopping in front of a stately white Colonial with long black shutters.  A canopied walkway extended to the street, its forest-green canvas emblazoned with the legend, Dubonnet Funeral Home.  Floodlights bathed the outer walls, while the windows shone warmly with a golden incandescence.  Gaston turned to the kids.  “Wait here,” he told them.  “I’ve got to speak with Felix.”  Then he was out of the car and heading up the walk.  After letting himself in, he and a second man appeared in a corner room, talking.  Or arguing, was more like it, judging from their body language.

            Kyril pulled up his door handle.  “C’mon,” he said, “let’s check this out.”

            “We’re supposed to wait here!” Calandra protested, but as her brother circled the Jeep and began slinking across the snowy yard, resistance crumbled.  Soon the two of them were peeking in a window, hands cupped to their ears to listen through the glass. 

            “My father built this business with hard work and integrity!  And you’ve done nothing but milk it dry!”

            “Give me that key and get out!  Or I’ll have you arrested!”

            Gaston turned eight shades of purple.  “Have me arrested?  Why, you—”  A fist shot out to connect with the uncle’s chin; he staggered backwards.  “That was for my dad, you sot!  And if you act against me in any way, I’ll give them enough dirt on you to keep you swinging a sledge hammer till you’re ninety!”  He threw his key down on the table, and started to leave.  Calandra and Kyril hurried back to the car.

            When he was buckled in again, Gaston looked long and hard at the familiar premises.  “Believe it or not, kids,” he said at last, “this is the only place I’ve ever worked.  I haven’t the foggiest idea what I’m going to do now.  I probably shouldn’t be telling you that, my own children, but I’ve always tried to be honest with you guys.”

            Calandra studied her father’s profile for a moment, then followed his gaze to the big white house beyond the canopy.  “Why don’t you just get another one, Daddy?”

            “Another what, honey?”

            “Another house.  Like this one.”

            “Yeah, Dad,” said Kyril.  “Where you bomb people.  You can do it better than that old sot any day.”  (He didn’t know what a ‘sot’ was, exactly, but it sure sounded right.)

Everyone was quiet for a while after that.  Then Gaston released his seat belt, and swung around to face the twins.  Even though it was dark inside the car, Calandra thought that his eyes seemed brighter than they had in ages.  

“You know,” he said, looking from one to the other, “I think you two may have something there.  Sure.  There’s plenty of business in the area.  That’s exactly what I’ll do.  I’ll open up my own place, on the other side of town.  That’d be perfect—”

            “You sure slugged him, didn’t you, Dad?”     

            “Now, Son,” his father began, “that’s not how we—”  But the jig was, as they say, up.  He put on a smile instead.  “How about some ice cream?”    

This story first appeared in Carbon Culture Review.

Head Case

Dr. Frankenstern assessed the patient in the client’s chair.  It was a smallish man, dark and plump and balding, who sat bolt upright and regarded him with large, moist, rapidly blinking brown eyes.  The brows were uncommonly lush, the nose round and pink, and the full lips coaxed by an overbite into a permanent expression of wonder.

            “So, where do we go from here, Vic?” the man asked him.

            The doctor drew in a preparatory breath.  “It’s not every day, Earl, that I advise a patient against having more tests.  But in your case, I can’t really justify—”

            “Oh, please, Vic,” said Haggart, wringing his hands.  “Don’t leave me in the dark.  I can’t stand the not-knowing.”

The doctor suppressed a smile.  “Well, to be honest with you, Earl, I’m not quite sure how to pursue this thing.  The symptoms you describe are a little…vague.  Tell you what.  Why don’t we go over it again from the top, and maybe the proper course of action will suggest itself.  Now, you say that you have a pain in the lower abdomen—”

            “Not a pain, exactly.  More of a discomfort.”

            “A discomfort.”

            “Yes, that’s right.  A feeling of disorientation.  I was thinking it might be a twisted bowel, because I remember reading once that—”

            “No, no,” said the doctor with a shake of his head.  “With a twisted bowel you’d have rectal bleeding, and all sorts of—”

            “Then maybe kidney colic,” Haggart suggested helpfully.  “Or a parasitic infection.  There was an article last month in JAMA about—”

            “I’m the doctor here, Earl,” Dr. Frankenstern said sternly.  “And, I think...”  But then he brightened.  “I think we’ll start you off with a barium enema.”  He picked up his prescription pad, scribbled on it, and tore off a page.  “Here.  Bring this out to the nurse.  She’ll fill you in on the details.”

            Haggart’s lower lip quivered.  “That’s not like a colonoscopy, is it, Vic?  Because frankly, I’m a little nervous about—”

“Oh, no, no, no.  Nothing like that.  Much less intrusive.  A glorified X-ray, really.  We don’t do many of them these days, but as far as you’re concerned, if you’ll forgive the pun, I think it’s just what the doctor ordered.”

            Haggart fairly sprang from the chair.  “Oh, thank you, Vic.  Thank you so much.  Gee.  I think I feel better already.”

*   *   *

The nurse opened a red plastic box.  Inside was a smorgasbord of pills and capsules, each in its own special compartment.  “Nothing to eat or drink but clear liquids for sixteen hours prior to the examination.  You’re scheduled for eight A.M., so that means no solid food after four this afternoon.”

            “Got it,” acknowledged Haggart.  “Nothing after four.  I’m so glad to be having this test, Jill, I can’t tell you.  I’ve been so worried.”

            “That’s perfectly understandable.  I hope it puts your mind at ease.  Now, the regimen of laxatives is very important.  The instructions are right here inside the lid.  If you have any questions, just give us a call.”

            Haggart surveyed the array of medicine.  “And which ones are the laxatives?” he asked eagerly. 

            A grin flickered and died.  “They’re all laxatives,” she told him.

*   *   *

The elevator doors had hardly closed when the receptionist piped up.  “That your hypo, Jill?”

            “Listen, Patty.  Just because someone has a healthy concern for their own well being doesn’t make them a hypochondriac.  On the other hand,” she continued, pointing with a thumb, “that guy’s the genuine article.  He thinks he’s got everything from beri beri to anthrax, and we’ve drawn enough blood to fill a lily pond.  Doc says the only thing wrong with him is a pair of flat feet.”

            “And a loose screw,” ventured Patty.

*   *   *

            “Good morning, Flo,” sang Adelaide, holding the door for her neighbor. 

The other woman squeezed by with difficulty, impeded less by the webbed laundry basket than her own considerable bulk.  “Phew!  It must be a hundred degrees in here!  Will they ever get that fan fixed?”

“Someday, I imagine.”  Addie found her reflection in the washing-machine glass, and adjusted a wayward lock.  Not bad, she decided, for sixty-one.  The cheeks were still pretty, her chin had yet to sag, and that silver mane did wonders for her striking green eyes.  

            “Oh, darn,” Florence broadcast.  “Two quarters short.  You wouldn’t happen to have a couple extra, would you, hon?” 

            Adelaide dug the usual touch from an apron pocket.  Several dollars a month were donated in this fashion, but she didn’t much mind.  Things were a little tight for Flo and Bob; he’d retired from the butcher shop, after all, and didn’t have a nice teacher’s pension like her Earl.

            “So how’s the mister?” her neighbor asked, feeding in the coins.  “I haven’t seen your hubby around in ages.”

            “He’s fine,” Adelaide told her, then responded to the raised eyebrows with a clarification.  “Well, not exactly fine, I suppose.  He’s at the doctor now, as a matter of fact.”

            “Oh, my.  Is it still that terrible ringing in his ears?  I remember that was bothering him for the longest time.”

            “No, that went away.  I think.  Lately it’s been some kind of an intestinal ailment.  For about a week now.”

            “Oh, my,” said Florence, studying the kaleidoscope of churning clothes.  “I know it  can’t be easy for you, Addie.  With Earl, I mean.  I can’t imagine what I’d do if my Bob was…had…  I guess what I’m trying to say is—if we can ever be of help with anything, I hope you won’t hesitate to ask.”

Adelaide patted her friend’s arm.  “Thank you, Flo, that’s sweet.  But I’m O.K., really I am.  It may sound funny, but Earl and I have a sort of a routine down at this point.  I’m used to it.”  She gave a little chuckle.  “The truth is, sometimes I wonder what I’d do if he ever stopped—suffering.”

*   *   *

            “Feel eet ray-goo-lar?” the young man inquired.  Probably an illegal from Mexico, Haggart surmised, but he was certainly pleasant enough.  And he had yet to forget the gas cap, which the previous incarnation (an alumnus of the very high school where he himself had  taught history) managed to do on a regular basis.  He nodded assent as he pried himself from the car.  Ooh, there it was again, that stab in the lower back.  Could mean a herniated disc... 

As usual, he found himself drifting toward the service garage.  There was something about this cavern that he found irresistible: walls hung with arcane equipment, floor filled with mysterious stains, the atmosphere redolent of balms and potions— 

“What’s up with the Toyota?” asked the mechanic, of a man with a smoking cigar. 

            “Loss of power, guy says.  Check the compression first and see what we got there.  If them rings are blowin’ by, it’ll poison the mix somethin’ awful.”  (Haggart drew a fist to his chest; acid reflux, rearing its ugly head...)

            “Then pull the fuel filter.  Any gunk in the tank, that’ll mean clogged injectors.”  (He wondered about the results of his liver tests.)  “Bottom line, we got an old dog on our hands, here.  What’s she got on her?”  The mechanic peered through the window.  “Eighty-five, but that’ll be twice around.”

            “Well, there you go.  A car with that kinda mileage is circlin’ the drain.”  (‘Circling the drain,’ Haggart recalled uneasily.  That was a phrase that doctors used for their terminal patients...)

            “Do what you can, Louie.  Change out the plugs, and dump in a can o’ oil treatment for that knock.  But we can’t work miracles.  This engine’s a cluckin’ time bomb.”  (That’s me, thought Haggart; sixty-six and ticking away…)

            “Yo, meester,” called his friend at the pump.  “Turty-two feefty.”

*   *   *

            “Eat all of your peas, dear, you’ll need your strength.”  Addie had hardly touched her own supper; 3:00 P.M. was a bit too close to lunch.  Her husband, on the other hand, had dined with relish.  At the instant the clock struck four, he dutifully pushed his plate away, scooped up the first two amber capsules, and washed them down with a refreshing swig of mineral water. 

            “Would you like to go outside for a while?”  It was their habit to sit by the walk, and watch the young mothers with their wee ones.

            “I don’t think so, love, not today.  I’m looking forward to starting my new book.  But, please, you go ahead.”

            She looked at him questioningly.  “You’ll be O.K.?”

            “Absolutely.  Don’t you worry a minute about me.  All I have to do is to take my medicine like a trooper, and while away the hours with a relaxing read till bedtime.  Couldn’t be easier.”

            Addie’s heart filled to brimming as she took in that face.  He could be so cute sometimes, so much like a little boy.  “Enjoy your reading, then, dear.”

*   *   *

            When she returned home an hour later, her husband’s favorite haunt—the upholstered wingchair he’d inherited from his mother—was empty.  But the tumbler was still there on the lamp-stand, as was that novel he’d bought at the used-book store.  A Russian author, he’d mentioned; she wondered if it was another from Count Tolstoy, or his beloved Dostoyevsky.  On impulse, she went over to see.  Ah, Solzhenitsyn: Cancer Ward.  My, that didn’t sound very cheery.  Haggart emerged from the bathroom then and tottered down the hallway like a boxer in need of a ten-count.  “How are you doing?” she asked him, but he seemed to look right through her.

            “Gosh,” he said, wiping his brow with the back of a hand.  “Those pills are really something.”

*   *   *

            Adelaide rolled toward her husband, but encountered only empty sheets.  She opened her eyes on the clock: 1:36 A.M.  Where could he be?  Departing the warmth of their bed, she draped a robe around her shoulders, and headed for the sliver of light at the base of the door.  There was a whoosh of water, and the sound of retreating footsteps.  “Earl?” she tried, but got no reply.

She found him back in the wingchair, already ensconced in his novel; mouth ajar and the text held inches from his nose.  “Earl,” she repeated, and he gave a start.

            “Oh, hello, love.”  Her husband’s eyes were bloodshot, and his face so pale it seemed almost aglow.

“Why are you still up?  You neeed your rest for that appointment in the morning.”

            “Can’t sleep,” he said.  “Those pills.  And this book, Addie, it’s horrible.  The things they’re doing to these poor sick people.  Experimenting on them with radiation, like rats—”  A teary-eyed snuffle cut short his review.

Addelaide circled the wingchair, and stroked her husband’s sparsely sown pate.  “Early, Early,” she cooed, “that’s all over, now, remember?  Ronnie Reagan put paid to those nasty Bolsheviks way back when.  Now, close that book and come to bed.  You need to get some sleep, even if it’s only a couple of hours’ worth.”

            “Yes, alright.  I’ll try.”  He stood up weakly and shut off the lamp with the brass pull chain—then switched it back on again.  There on the coaster were two sky-blue spheres, staring back at them like cartoon eyeballs.  Haggart swept up the pills with a trembling hand. “Last set,” he said around gritted teeth.  Addie waited while he took some water, then led him down the hallway to their bedroom.  In ten minutes flat, they were snug as bugs-in-a-rug and fast asleep.  In fifteen, Haggart was up and dashing for the john like a sprinter to the finish line.

*   *   *

            The waiting room in Radiology was hot, cramped, and dominated by Norman-Rockwell-like renderings of sagacious doctors with cringing children.  These lacked the naturalistic flair of the master, however, and looked like the chintzy knockoffs they were.  Haggart found the effect disquieting; it seemed like something shameful were afoot.  He picked up a magazine, which fell open to an ad for floating hotels off the coast of Belize.  What drivel!  How could anyone enjoy such decadence when good people were suffering—people like himself? 

            And he was suffering now, boy, if he hadn’t been before, after a night without sleep and a morning with no breakfast.  He knew it was silly, but he felt as if he were starving; every movement of his head made the room swim around him.  And as if that weren’t enough, he was painfully shy about exposing himself, and couldn’t help thinking that this particular test might involve… 

But at least it would be administered by a middle-aged man; he’d verified that with a call to the desk.  Frank Loman was the good fellow’s name—

            “Mr. Haggart?”  A nurse stood in the doorway, a girl really, cheeks the color of cotton candy and hardly more than twenty years old.  Must be a new hire; he knew most everyone at the medical group by sight, if not by name.  “We’re all set for you now.” 

He accompanied her past examining rooms familiar as old friends.  Here was the shadowy X-ray suite (‘chin up, shoulders forward, take a deep breath and hold it…’), and directly opposite, the MRI machine, where they stuffed you into a sewer pipe while powerful men with sledge-hammers (or so it sounded) beat frenetically on the outside.  But the room at the end of the hall he could never remember visiting.  Inside was a stainless steel table of the sort used for autopsies.

“How are you feeling today, Mr. Haggart?” the nurse inquired, closing the door behind them.

            “Oh, not too bad,” he lied, his heart rate starting to skyrocket.

            “Has anyone explained the procedure to you?”

            “Uh, well, no, I don’t think so.  That is, not in so many words.”

            “That’s alright, it’s pretty straightforward.  We don’t actually do too many of these anymore.”  He noticed a scent on her then that was unmistakable: bubble gum.  The girl was chewing bubble gum.  Stepping away, she removed a piece of equipment from brackets on the wall.  It was composed of a black rubber bag of about a gallon capacity, attached to a heavy-duty flexible tube, from the end of which protruded—

            Oh my god.

            “First we insert this self-locking probe,” said the nurse, joggling the abomination back and forth in front of her.  “Then we inflate the lower bowel to maximum distension with a slurry of barium salt solution and compressed air, until we get a clear—are you O.K.?”

“I—I’m fine,” Haggart spluttered.  “But I think I’d like to see Dr. Lowman now, if that’s alright.”

            She smiled at him patiently till her eyes found the clock.  “Mr. Lowman is on vacation this week.  My name is Dawn, and I will be your technician today.  Now, remove all of your clothing for me, climb up onto the table here and lie down flat on your back.  There’s a step stool on the other side.”

Haggart swallowed hard.  “All of my clothing?”

            The nurse mulled it over.  “You can leave your socks on if your feet are cold,” she said.

*   *   *

            Haggart entered the living room wearing his third change of ties.  Adelaide could tell by his expression that he liked this gold-and-navy best.

            “How do I look?” he asked, doing a shuffling pirouette.

“Very handsome.  That one definitely compliments your shirt.  But honestly, Earl, you act as though we were having dinner with the president.  It’s only Clifford Bliss, your ex-student, and he practically worships the ground you walk on.  It’s him who should be a nervous Nellie.”

            “Well, I like Clifford,” said Haggart, shrugging into his jacket.  “And I won’t deny that I consider these reunions to be quite an honor.  It isn’t every high school teacher who’s feted by a student fifteen years after graduation.”

            Addie went over to straighten the knot he’d inflicted.  “That’s true.  Particularly one who’s done so well for himself.”

            “Yes, he—ooh, not so tight, love; I’ve got a little swelling there in the glands—he sure has made a go of it in the import business.”

“And in the romance business, apparently.  He said on the phone that he’s bringing someone special.”

            Haggart’s eyes widened.  “What?  Clifford’s gotten serious?  That doesn’t sound a bit like the devoted rake I remember.”

            “Love conquers all, dear,” Addie reminded him.  “It happens to the best of you.”

“Yes it does,” he conceded with a wink.  “Indeed it does.”

*   *   *

            The Pirate’s Cove was the fanciest restaurant in town.  Bliss made reservations there whenever he came to visit, and invariably for the table by the window with its sumptuous view of the bay.  Tonight was no different, nor did he alter his routine by arriving on time.  Planned for seven, dinner was already a half-hour late when, adjusting himself on the chair, Haggart got a stitch in the upper thigh.  The opening strains of sciatica, no doubt—a severe and debilitating condition that would only worsen over time.  But he wouldn’t let it beat him, no sir.  Not that, nor any of the other maladies that chomped and gnawed at his aging carcass like a pack of hungry jackals.  Resolve, that was the ticket.  Grim resolve in the face of adversity…

“Earl,” said Addie with a nudge, and here was their host, weaving among the tables with that confident, carefree stride.   And on his arm…

            Oh dear.  Oh my goodness.

            “Addie, you look grand,” effused Bliss, bending to buss her cheek.  “And you, Earl, you look—terrible.”  A palisade of sparkling ivory.  “Only kidding, Doc, you know that.  You haven’t changed a whit in twenty years.  You’re like that guy in the painting, what’s his name—”  He snapped his fingers until he thought of it: “Delorean Gray.”

            Haggart smiled back as he took the man in.  Bliss was elegance personified: Italian suit, hand-screened silk tie, Rolex—even a boutonnière.  Then his gaze skipped to the woman at his side, this jewel.  Chinese, most likely, petite and exquisite, with jet-black hair, dazzling cat-eyes, and skin as white as an eggshell.  Her lips were the color of a perfectly ripened plum.

            “Addie, Earl—may I present Mei Chang,” said Bliss, and Haggart found himself rising from his chair and bowing ridiculously.  “And this,” Bliss told her, putting a hand on his shoulder, “is good old Doc Haggart, the man who taught me all there is to know about the history of the universe.”

            Haggart demurred.  “Now Clifford, you exaggerate.  I hardly think that—”

            “No, really,” Bliss insisted, “you changed my life.  You did.  I remember those lectures like it was only yesterday.  Solomon, leading his elephants over the Andes—”

            “You mean Hannibal, and the Alps.”

            “Yeah, whatever.  Let’s get some action here.  I need a belt.”

*   *   *

            Haggart did his best during the meal not to ogle Mei Chang.  He tried to concentrate on Bliss’s chronicles; the endless jaunts to Paris and Prague, the debut of his company’s fourteenth store, the brand new beach house in Santa Monica—but the eyes strayed of their own volition, and tarried longer than they should have done.  More than once, Addie had caught him staring and given him a look, whether of amusement or annoyance he wasn’t sure.  But he couldn’t help it, anymore than he could have ignored the Hindenburg wafting overhead; he was a schoolboy again, bewitched and mooning in the presence of a great beauty.

            As usual, Bliss went on and on about the importance of history in his life, giving his teacher credit for everything he’d accomplished.  This had always been a mystery to Haggart; as he’d explained to Addie, Bliss had not been a good student, and even something of a troublemaker.  He recalled afternoons spent with the teenager whom he’d held over for detention, himself correcting papers while the lad had covered his binder with ballpoint sketches and designs.  Obviously he had managed, via some mystical channel, to reach through the fog of failing test scores and missing homework to connect with the boy in a very special way.  In the end, it was none of the first-row, budding laureates who’d given him credit for a contribution to their lives, but rather Bliss—Clifford Bliss of all people.  And Haggart was grateful for it, too, more grateful than he could ever express.  

            “This was our first international acquisition, and Jeffrey—he’s my sales manager—he says to me, ‘I don’t know, Cliff, do you really think we should venture into France?  It’s a whole new ball game over there, what with the language and everything.’  So I say to him, ‘Listen, son.  We’re Americans.  We take chances.  You didn’t hear Admiral Peary whining about his trip to the South Pole, did you?’  Well, that stopped him cold—and no pun intended.”

            Bliss let out his infectious laugh, and the others, infected, joined in.  Haggart was delighted by Mei’s charming little chitter.  “Forgive me for being pedantic, Clifford, but you’re thinking of Amundsen.  Peary went to the North Pole, in nineteen nine.  Got frostbite in both feet.  They sawed off most of his toes, poor devil, but he wouldn’t give up.  Made it the last few miles with nothing but a handful of Eskimos and a couple of wild dogs.”

            “See?” cried Bliss, thrusting a finger.  “He knows everything!”

            “Well, I hardly—” Haggart began, but then the girl was regarding him with a kind of reverence in those captivating eyes of hers, and he felt himself sitting up straighter and pushing out his chest.

            “That’s what he did in class!” Bliss recalled excitedly.  “He’d reel off these wonderful stories about kings and castles and ships on fire—the stuff that dreams are made of.  Why, I’d leave that classroom floating on a cloud.”  Inspired anew, he raised his cocktail.  “Ladies, I give you Dr. Earl Haggart, my personal mentor and inspiration.”  He said this last rather loudly, and a fellow at a nearby table began clapping.  Soon another had taken it up, and then the whole establishment seemed to burst into applause at once. 

            Haggart didn’t know whether to be mortified or exhilarated.  He looked from Addie to Bliss and lastly at Mei Chang, finding her own delicate hands joining in the tribute.  A flush of pride came over him then as he hoisted his Scotch to clink the other glass.  “Thank you, Clifford,” he said.  “Thank you very much.”  He felt as if he were ten feet tall.

            “You are...doctor, Mr. Earl?”  This from Mei, who had scarcely uttered a word all evening, except to whisper into Bliss’s ear. 

            “Not a medical doctor, dear,” he explained, aware that his voice carried a lilt of adoration, but unable to suppress it.  “I have a doctorate in world history.  From Cornell.”

            “That’d be a laugh,” opined Bliss, laughing.  “You, an M.D.  With all of your, you know, peccadilloes.  You’d bill yourself into the poorhouse, ha, ha.”  Haggart peered at him quizzically, a queasy sensation forming in his stomach.

            “I’m afraid I don’t know,” he said.  “What are you referring to?”

            “Clifford—” Addie began, but Bliss cut her off, growing more tickled by the moment. 

“The doc’s a bit of a worrier,” he said to the girl, “about his health.”  He seized his cocktail, found it empty and lifted a finger for the waiter.  “Always thinks he’s got something, you know, that he’s sick when he really isn’t.  What do you call that?  Oh, you know what I mean.”  But Mei Chang didn’t have a clue, and continued to stare at him with a prettily furrowed brow.

            “Clifford,” Addie chided, reaching to touch his hand, but he’d angled away to a nearby diner.

            “What’s the word for someone who imagines they’re ill?” he asked, and waited until the other had finished chewing.

            “Hypochondriac,” came the answer, and Bliss spun around.  “That’s what you are, old boy!” he thundered, slapping the tablecloth for emphasis.  “You’re a hypochondriac!”

            The restaurant fell silent for a long, eerie moment.  Then the man who’d applauded before was applauding again, and soon everyone was laughing and clapping uproariously.  Haggart turned to Addie for support, only to see her solicitous mien shatter as she began to giggle in spite of herself.  And then he was growing smaller, shrinking away like a lump in a cup of tea, and just when he thought he might disappear entirely, his eyes found Mei Chang—her features contorted and even repulsive—cackling away with the rest of them.

*   *   *

             “Would you like more ginger ale, dear?”  Her husband was sitting with the paper in his lap, as he had been for over an hour now, but his gaze was fixed beyond it, on a whorl in the carpet of uncommon interest, or on something else entirely that only he could see.  “No thank you, love.  I’m fine.”      

            He was still reeling from the fiasco at dinner, and rightly so.  Of all the stupid things for Clifford to blurt out in front of half the town—and after all that his teacher had done for him, by his own admission.  Everybody and his brother knew that Earl was…one of those, but it was a handicap, an infirmity, not the kind of thing you made fun of, anymore than you’d rib a man about his stutter, or a club foot.  And Clifford didn’t appreciate, couldn’t begin to fathom, that her husband’s disorder had become an integral part of his lifestyle, and by extension, of her own.  In a very real sense it was their guiding star, their raison d’être, what set them apart from all of the other shambling, A.A.R.P. relics. 

Sure it was tough to endure sometimes; the conga line of complaints, the endless hours spent in waiting rooms, the constant focus on illness and disease—like a bastard child, to be coddled and nourished and toted around with her wherever she went, in lieu of the real one she’d never been blessed with.  But it was her cross to bear, and bear it she did, bravely and around the clock, as she had now for decades.  And there was a source of pride in that, a certain dignity, like a woman with a son in the war who garnered respect for the sacrifice.  Not a concept that everyone would grasp, especially a philistine like Clifford Bliss—

            “I’m going for a walk, Addie,” said Haggart, getting to his feet.  “I’ll see you in a little while.”

*   *   *

            He’d heard it before, of course.  At first they’d taunted him at school for being a ‘momma’s boy,’ and later, once his afflictions began to develop, for being ‘sickly.’  But it wasn’t until the fifth grade when Mrs. Miller had used it herself, that they had learned the accursed word.  He’d asked for the hall pass to see the nurse about a headache—or maybe it had been a rash, or a sore throat, or a dizzy feeling.  In any case, Mrs. Miller had gotten angry.  “You’re not going anywhere, Earl Haggart, because there’s nothing wrong with you.  Not now, not yesterday, and not last week; the nurse told me herself that there’s never anything wrong with you, that you’re a hypochondriac.  Do you know what that is, Earl?  That’s someone who thinks they’re sick when they’re perfectly well.  That’s you, Earl, that’s you to a tee.  You’re a hy-po-chon-dri-ac.”  She’d reached for a piece of chalk to write it on the board, but hesitated as she looked again at the little boy with the moisture welling in his trusting brown eyes.  Then she picked up the wooden cut-out of a firetruck instead.  “Here, Earl.  Take the pass.  Go and see the nurse.”

            But he hadn’t been well that day, nor any of the other ones, either.  Mrs. Miller just didn’t realize that some people were more sensitive than others, that’s all, more prone to illness and injury, and that there was nothing whatsoever they could do about it.  It certainly wasn’t his fault.  Or Mother’s... 

He pictured her now in one of her print dresses—the one with the sunflowers—attentive and doting as she had been in his youth, bringing him a Coke as he sat before the television with his after-school snack of bologna slices and Wise potato chips.  “Poor baby,” she murmured, skimming his face with an ever-present Kleenex.  “Runny nose again.  You’re coming down with something, I just know you are.”  Was he?  He thought that he felt O.K., but if Mother said— 

If Mother said...

            Haggart stopped walking and peered up into the vast night sky, suddenly aware of a chill in the air.  There was a constellation above him that he should have recognized, but the stars seemed different tonight, cryptic and indecipherable, a crowd of cosmic strangers.

            Mother had done plenty of her own suffering, of course.  He joined her now for one of her migraines, she in the parlor wingchair amidst a comforting sea of pillows, and he in short pants on the ottoman alongside.  The shades would be drawn against the sunlight, the pulse of her headache in synch—or so he imagined—with that clock.  (The grandfather clock: ebony sentinel looming in the corner.  How he’d despised that thing.  The ominous clacking of its wooden works like the gait of a stalking monster; the funereal chime a theme song for every one of his nightmares.)  Father would arrive home oozing commiseration.  Except that Earl would catch his surreptitious sighs, the half-hidden shakes of the head, and occasionally, when he was speaking on the phone in the library where he didn’t think to be overheard, the characterization of his tormented spouse as…as a…

            Then Haggart was sobbing into his palms as he hadn’t done for years.

*   *   *

            “How do you feel this morning, dear?”  Addie delivered his whole-wheat toast and the jar of marmalade.

            “Splendid, my sweet,” he replied sweetly. 

            She had returned to the kitchen before it gelled.  Had he said, ‘splendid’?  Earl was many things in the morning: hanging in there, tolerable, fair to midling—but ‘splendid’ was definitely not in the repertoire.  Maybe he wasn’t fully awake yet; yes, that could account for the queer remark.  She took up mugs of coffee and joined him at the table.  “Would you mind if we stopped by Sears today?  I’m dying to find a sweater to go with my new fall slacks.”

            “Capital idea,” said Haggart.  “I can stock up on Old Spice, and check out those treadmills they have in the flyer.”

            Addie began to cough and sputter.  Haggart moved with surprising swiftness to pat her on the back.  “Sweetheart?  Do you need some water?”

            “No, no,” she managed at last, waving off his ministrations.  “But—what was that you said about a—treadmill?”     

Her husband chuckled.  “Oh, not to worry.  I intend to be very cautious at first with my exercise program.  Or I should say, with our exercise program, because I’m counting on you to join me.”  He smiled at her strangely then, and she could only gape in response, dumbstruck. 

“But—what about your your neck?  And your back?  And your knees?  And your—”

            He waved a hand.  “The challenges of middle age, my love, nothing else.  Oh, I know that I’ve dwelt on those things more than I should have, a practice I inherited from my dear mother, bless her soul.  Raised suffering to an art form, that woman, and passed the skill along to her only son.  I was a quick study, of course.  Always have been—”

            “Earl, I—”

“No, please.  Let me finish.  Last night was a godsend, Addie.  It drove me to ponder, long and hard.  And I came to the conclusion that—well, that…” (he directed his next words to the ceiling) “…that I’ve suffered quite enough!” 

The wall phone rang then, and Haggart strode to answer it, savoring the amazement on his lovely bride’s face.  But there was something else there, too—something, perhaps, akin to hope—and as he encouraged that look with one of his own, a spark leapt between them. 

The phone pealed again, and he snatched up the receiver.  “Hello?  Yes?  Oh.  Good morning, Jill.  You’ll be calling to verify my Wednesday appointment.  I’d like to cancel, actually.  Yes, that’s right.  I’m feeling much better now, and—what?  The week before last?  Sure, I remember.  What about it?” 

The silence seemed to go on too long. 

“Alright,” he said finally.  “I understand.  Yes.  Thank you, Jill, I’ll be sure to follow up.”  He hung up the phone softly, but never turned.

            “Earl.  Earl, what is it?  What did the nurse say?” 

“That test we did.  The biopsy.  They got the results back from the lab.  And they found…  They found…”

Addie stood up from the table and began to approach him, a hand clutching the neck of her bathrobe.  “Found what, Earl?  What did they find?  Tell me.”    

            Her husband swung around slowly.  “Just what I’ve always been afraid of, Adelaide.  Nothing.  They found absolutely nothing.” 

A grin exploded then as he swept her into his arms.  “Alright, babe, here’s the plan: we can hit the mall later, but first, we’re gonna drag this blasted wingchair down to the dumpster where it belongs.  And after that—we’ve got to start planning our trip!  That’s right, Addie!  A second honeymoon!  I’m taking you to Belize, in Central America!  Can you believe it?  And wait till you see our hotel…”  

This story appeared first in Poydras Review.

D-Day

“Don’t be sad, Jenny,” her mother urged, stroking the little girl’s long dark hair.  “Try to understand, honey.  Departure Day isn’t a bad thing at all.  It’s a good thing.  A rite of passage sort of—like a graduation.  There isn’t any pain involved, no suffering…”  She glanced at her husband, who gave her a furtive nod of encouragement.  They had both worked hard to prepare their daughter for this first Departure, but you could never tell how you’d done until the day arrived.

            Jenny blinked back a tear.  “Can we go see Grandpa now?”

            “You bet we can,” said her mother.  Jenny picked up her hug-worn Teddy bear, and they left the kitchen together for the rear bedroom. 

Grandpa was sitting in his comfortable chair by the window, watching the birds on the feeder outside.  Jenny crossed the carpet to look over his shoulder.  None of the pretty birds were there now, no cardinals or purple finches, just a couple of those sparrows with the brown-and-white spots.  The sparrows all looked the same to her, but Grandpa said there were lots of different types, and he’d tried to teach her the names one day.  She’d gotten them all mixed up, but he hadn’t been the least bit mad at her.  Grandpa never got mad at anyone.  He was the nicest man in the whole wide world.

            “Can I see your Gold Watch, Grandpa?”

            His crinkly Santa Claus face spread into a smile.  “Of course you can, bumpkin.”  He placed his wrist on the arm of the chair.

Jenny had seen lots of Gold Watches, but she liked this one best.  The metaloid gleamed with a flawless finish, and every movement drew sparkles from a ring of lunar diamonds.  In the center, the display was set in a pretty pink cloud that roiled and shifted like a sea of cotton candy.

For seventy-nine years, one hundred and sixty-four days, that display had consisted of the date, time, GPS coordinates and barometric pressure, the values alternating sequentially every other second.  But then, almost twenty-four hours ago, there had been a dramatic change.  The numbers had gone from their usual, cheery yellow to a no-nonsense flat black.  And now only the time was shown in military format, marching inexorably backward toward the end of the final day.  There were currently, Jenny saw, just six minutes and forty-three seconds of that day remaining—

            ...42, 41, 40, 39...

            “Are you afraid, Grandpa?” Jenny asked him.

            He looked into her clear, blue, eight-year-old eyes and smiled again.  “Oh, no, bumpkin.  Grandpa isn’t afraid.  I’ve been ready now for a long, long time.”

            “Isn’t D-Day supposed to be when you’re a hundred, Grandpa?”

            A firmer voice answered from the doorway.  “Not always, Jen,” said her father.  “It’s often around there, but it can be different for everyone.  You see, when you turn twelve, you’ll give some hair to the doctor—”

            “Not my hair!” 

            The grownups shared a chuckle.  “Only a strand or two,” her father clarified.  “You won’t even know it’s missing.  So, the doctor takes the sample, like he did from Grandpa, here, when he was twelve, and from Mommy and me, and he’ll send it down south—”

            “To Big Alice?” Jenny suggested.  She had learned about Big Alice in school, like all of the other children.

            “That’s right.  To Big Alice, the DNA mainframe in Virginia.  The computer will calculate your genetic prognosis—and there’s everything in there about you, every exact detail about the way that your body will grow and respond to stimulus over the years—and then it selects a Departure Date, to avoid the, uh…”

            Mommy came to the rescue.  “Some of the yucky stuff that would happen to people when they got very sick, or older—”

            “But not as old as I am now,” added Grandpa.  “People used to have a lot of physical and mental ailments when they were as young as, oh, seventy or eighty.  I’m ninety-one and I still feel fine.”

            “Then why does your Gold Watch say you have to go, Grandpa?”  She looked at it as she waited for a response.  Four minutes and thirty-six seconds, it read.

            ...35, 34, 33, 32...

            “Well, bumpkin, you see—we decided a long time ago that when folks get to be around my age, they...well, they’ve generally had all the living they need.  I mean, you’ve raised a family, you’ve had your career and your National Service, and it’s just kinda right that you should step aside and make some room for all the young whipper-snappers.”  He reached down to tweak Jenny’s nose, and she giggled.

            “Oh, boy,” said Grandpa, checking the time.  “We’re getting close now.  Come and sit on Grandpa’s lap and we’ll follow these rascals down together.”  Jenny tried to climb up, but she couldn’t make it past the old man’s knees.  Her father was starting forward when Grandpa motioned him back.  Finally, on the third attempt, she and Teddy managed to wriggle into place.  Grandpa wrapped her in his arms and adjusted the watch so they both could see it.  Across the room, her parents took hold of each other’s hands.  Two minutes, fifty-five seconds, the watch read.

            ...54, 53, 52, 51...

            “Grandpa?” Jenny asked.  “What will the Gold Watch do to you?  Will it hurt?”

            Her grandfather held her close.  “Oh, no, bumpkin.  Nothing like that.  It’s kind of neat what it does, really.  At Departure Time, I’ll get a tiny dose of medicine right through the skin—we’re talking a few molecules here, not even so much as an itty-bitty drop—and it’ll shut down all of the electrical signals inside of me, just like you turned off a light.”

            Jenny pondered this a while before her attention drifted back to the numbers.  Then her face grew very serious, and she sat up straight.  “Mommy, Daddy, come over here and watch the last minute.”  Exchanging a look, her parents advanced to stand beside the chair.

            “You count ‘em down for me, bumpkin,” said Grandpa, and Jenny recited out loud.

            “Thirty-two, thirty-one, thirty, twenty-nine, twenty-eight...”

            “Goodbye, Ed,” Jenny’s father said to Grandpa, reaching down to pat his shoulder.

            “Goodbye, Dad,” said Jenny’s mother, and there was a catch in her voice as she planted a kiss on his forehead.

            “Now, now, little girl, none of that,” Grandpa admonished.  He gave her a wink before turning back to mind the digits with his Jenny.

            “Eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one—”

            And the watch-bearing arm descended softly as the other hand slipped from her waist.

Jenny twisted around to see that Grandpa’s eyes were shut and his head cocked a little to one side, as if he’d fallen asleep.

            “Bye-bye, Grandpa,” she said with a sniffle.

The ensuing silence was broken by her mother.  “Do you know what let’s do, Jenny?” she said, lifting the girl from her grandfather’s lap.  “Let’s make us some D-Day cookies.  In honor of Grandpa.  I think he would have liked that.  What do you say?  Does that sound like a good idea?”

            “Mocha chocolate chip?  Those were his favorite.”

            “Mine too,” said her father.  “When do I get some?”

            “Now Carl, they’ll be ready when they’re ready.  You’d better go and see about those forms.  The Air Van will be here soon.”

            “Right,” he said, “I’d forgotten all about that,” and hurried off down the hall.

            “Then mocha chocolate chip it is.  And I think the occasion calls for a double batch.  What do you think?”  Jenny was nodding, but her gaze was still on Grandpa, lifeless now as the bear beneath his arm.

            “Do you want me to get Teddy for you?”

            Jenny thought for a moment, then shook her head.  “No,” she said.   “Teddy needs to be with Grandpa a little while longer.”  She pried her eyes away then, and allowed herself to be led from the room.

*  *  *

The buzzing came while Jenny was licking cookie dough from a big wooden spoon.  Looking to the window, she saw the Air Van blot out the world as it descended to a hover-landing a foot above the lawn.  Shaped like a football, it was higher in the middle than the top of their tallest apple tree.  And it was green—not a deep green, like the grass, but more bluish-green, like the swimming pool at the park.  Jenny had seen the Vans lots of times in the sky, but never up close like this before.

            “Can I go outside and look at it?” she asked her mother.

            “I don’t see why not.  Just don’t get in the men’s way.”

            “Oh, I won’t,” Jenny promised, and she was out of the door in a flash.

The ship’s hatch opened with a sound like a gust of wind, and four men stepped down, all of them wearing shiny silver Authority Suits, like policemen.  The tallest one noticed her standing there, beside the azalea bush.

            “Is this your home, Little Miss?” 

            Jenny nodded shyly.

            “What lovely plastiform it’s made of.  Did you pick out that pattern?”

            Jenny knew when she was being kidded.  “No,” she said with a grin.  “My mommy and daddy picked it.”

            “Well, it’s very attractive,” said the man, and then he followed the others over to the house, where her father was waiting to greet them.  They disappeared into the kitchen, and Jenny found herself alone.

            It was then that she noticed the noises coming from the ship’s interior.  The more she listened to them, the more they sounded like some funny little bird: Wink-dink, wink-dink, doodle-oodle.  Wink-dink, wink-dink, doodle-oodle...  Pussyfooting closer, she peeked in through the open hatchway.  It was dark in there, and hard to see anything until her eyes adapted.  Once they had, she found the gently floating image was making her a little dizzy.  She leaned against the doorframe and let her body get into the rhythm; then she felt alright again.  

At the front of the Van, to her right, were twin pilots’ seats set before a wide, crescent-shaped windshield that was invisible from the outside.  Below this was a maze of dials and meters with red and blue numbers on them.  Some of them shone steady, while others were changing so fast she couldn’t even read them.  To the left there were three more seats, and beyond these was a big cluster of transparent cylinders arranged in a pattern like a honeycomb.  A few of them were empty, but most contained long, white, plastic bags.  Sprouting from the bags were wires or tubes that connected them to a wall-mounted machine emitting a series of noises.  Clicks and hisses mostly, but every few seconds a familiar refrain: Wink-dink, wink-dink, doodle-oodle…

            The screen door creaked behind her, and Jenny retreated from the Air Van, not sure if she was allowed to be so close.  As she watched, two men came out of the house carrying a stretcher with a white bag on top, and she guessed that her grandpa must be in there.  They passed her by to enter the ship, while the other pair stayed with her father.  Soon they all shook hands, and the men in the silver suits came across the lawn, talking.  Jenny heard something about a return trip tomorrow, but then she forgot about that when the closer man—the one who’d addressed her before—held out her Teddy bear.   

“I think this belongs to you, Little Miss.”  He was smiling, but it was one of those smiles that grownups make when they’re only pretending.  “You’d better go inside, honey.  The energy field can be pretty strong when we lift off.”

            “O.K.,” said Jenny.  “Glad to meet you, sir.”

            “Glad to meet you too, Little Miss.”  He stepped aboard the Van, and turned back as if to say something, but then let his eyes fall.  The hatch swept closed like a curtain to block him from view.  The buzzing began again, and she was already running when her father called her name.

            *  *  *

Standing on a chair by the kitchen window, Jenny looked out at the big, blue-green football rising from the ground.  It continued straight up until it was higher than the neighbor’s chimney, and then the pine trees, and then the electrical tower, and higher and higher still until Jenny had to put her chin to the glass and tilt her head way back to keep it in view.  Then it stopped for a moment while the front of it swung around gently like a mobile hung from a string, and it began to move forward, slowly at first but then faster and faster until it shrank to a tiny dot against the clouds.

            Jenny turned around and sat down cross-legged on the chair.  Across the room, her mother was programming dinner instructions into the auto-chef, while her father sliced vegetables on the cutting board.  She spoke to the stuffed animal in the crook of her arm.  “You see, Teddy?  Grandpa’s going to be O.K.  Those nice men in the Air Van are going to take very good care of him.  Isn’t that right, Mommy?”

            Her mother was swiping a plastic recipe card.  “What’s that, dear?”

            “Aren’t those nice men going to take good care of Grandpa?  That’s what I told Teddy Bear.”

            Her mother swiped again and sighed, then began punching in the numbers manually.  “Absolutely.  He’s in the best of hands.  Carl, this reader isn’t working at all now.  You’ll have to call Sears.”

            “See, Teddy, I told you so.”  Jenny remembered something, and scrunched up her face in concentration.  Sliding from the chair, she went over to stand between her parents.

            “Can I see your Gold Watch, Daddy?”

            “Sure, sweetheart,” he said distractedly, rotating his wrist.

            “Thanks.  Mommy?  Can I see your Gold Watch?”

            “Hmmm,” said her mother, looking from card to keypad as she held out her arm.

            Jenny’s eyes lit up.  “Oh.  Con…grat…u…lations, Mommy,” she said, struggling with the big word.  “It’s you!”

            “Uh-huh.  What’s me, honey?”

            “It’s your D-Day too, Mommy!  Con…grat…u…lations.”

Her mother’s focus veered a few degrees from the auto-chef.  Then she jerked her hand up to look at the watch.  22:17:58 it read, in flat black numerals.

            ...57, 56, 55, 54...

            “Carl,” she spat.  “It’s started!  My watch!  The countdown has started!”

            “What?”  Her husband lunged to see for himself.  “It can’t be,” he said as he checked the display.  “It can’t be…”

            “But I’m not sick, Carl.  And I’m only forty-nine.  Only forty-nine...”

            They gaped at each other, dumbstruck.  It didn’t occur to either of them that there may have been some mistake.  Unicom didn’t make mistakes; everyone knew that.  

            But their little girl was speaking, and they swung their heads together to her bright and bubbly voice.  “Don’t be upset, Mommy.  I understand now, really I do.  And so does Teddy Bear.  Teddy says you’ll get to ride in the Air Van, just like Grandpa.  And tomorrow, Daddy and me can make S’mores, ‘cause those are your favorite.  Isn’t that right, Daddy?  Can we, Daddy?”

            There was a long silence before he answered.  “Why sure we can, sweetie.”  Then his gaze moved slowly to meet his wife’s.  “I think…she would have liked that.”

This story first appeared in REAL Magazine.