Normal

by Scott J. Holliday

  No dice.

  Fear welled up inside him, but he recalled McLean’s advice to view his skin as a skill. It helped him quiet the fear and continue to move. He focused his eyes on the tent wall just beyond the crowd. There was a brown stain there. It was in the shape of a kidney bean. The stain was faint in the middle and dark rimmed at the edges. He tried to imagine how it got there and what had caused it. Mud? A rotten tomato? Blood?

  At that final thought a coldness came to Roy, and he understood that detachment was the real skill. The actor detached and became someone else when he walked across the stage. Afterward he was again himself. He could be sad, happy, or crazy. He could be a woman or a man. He could be dressed as an animal. Roy once read a play where a man acted as Faust making his pact with the devil. Roy felt he should do the same. He should walk across the stage and become the coldblooded reptile they paid to see, making a deal with his own devil.

  At present Roy neared a scarecrow. It wore a Union army jacket over a stuffing of straw and leaves. Years of neglect had worn the scarecrow down and robbed it of its former glory. The right arm was broken off and the sleeve hung limply, twisting in the wind. The left arm pointed toward Chicago and held up a murder of crows. The crows were defiant to the scarecrow’s original intent, perching in mockery. They squawked as Roy approached. Roy vaguely recalled his father once saying something about keeping friends close and enemies closer. The crows seemed to heed the advice.

  Roy moved with suddenness and the crows scattered, laughing as they went. Roy came to the scarecrow and faced it. The scarecrow’s stitched eyes were level with his own. It had a ripped, all-knowing smile, and its hat was eaten through with dark holes.

  “That way to Chicago, eh?” Roy said, nodding to the scarecrow’s pointed arm.

  The scarecrow held its silence.

  It occurred to Roy that someone viewing from a distance might not know, between he and the scarecrow, which man was living and which was nothing more than straw and stick.

  Roy heard a distant train whistle. He looked over the scarecrow’s broken shoulder. A mile off he saw the black, smoking line of a commuter train chugging toward Chicago.

  30

  Paul exited the diner car holding Sandy’s hand. Crittendon and Lee followed close behind. People milled before them like a roiling sea. Chicago. There were hats and shoulders, smoking pipes and newspapers, suitcases and boxes, dogs on leashes. Frank Ledger had gotten off before them. Despite his roughed up clothing, the man merged into the mix of humanity at the Illinois Central Station and was gone. Losing sight of him both troubled and relieved Paul.

  “Good riddance to that bastard,” Crittendon said.

  “Yeah,” Lee said.

  Paul could hardly hear them over the din. He weaved through bodies like an eel through a weed bed, sliding into gaps and turning and twisting his body as he moved toward the Western Union with Sandy in tow. For her part, she didn’t complain about being dragged through the crowd.

  Paul hoped he could lose Crittendon and Lee like Ledger had lost them, but it wasn’t to be; Crittendon was a cattle catcher. He barged through the crowd in a straight line, discharging bodies left and right, invoking ill commentary.

  At the Western Union there was a message from Delmont Graves:

  SHE MADE AN ATTEMPT ON HER LIFE. MIGHT NOT SURVIVE.

  Paul read the message once.

  Twice.

  A third time.

  The din faded away and was replaced by a high-pitched keening. He looked up. Jeb Crittendon was saying something and Cyrus Lee was nodding in agreement. They were mimes. Paul thought they should join variety theatre. He looked around to see all the bodies and mouths and eyes moving. All these people, living their lives and doing their things. Talking, eating, working, smoking. They were sleepwalking, unaware that his wife had attempted suicide.

  Sandy tugged at his duster. He looked down at her. Sound returned in parts. First a bell, somewhere outside the station, pierced through the high-pitched tone in his ears. Then a man selling boiled peanuts called, “Get ‘em while they’re hot!” A boy dropped a marble and it clacked against the bricks.

  “Constantine,” Crittendon said. Paul watched as the heavy man put a hand on his shoulder, but he didn’t feel its weight. He didn’t feel himself being shaken. “Still here with us?”

  Paul looked up at the big board. A man on a ladder was posting train arrivals and departures. A train left for Colfax that afternoon. If he hurried he could be home by mid-morning, tomorrow.

  Gloria was a drunk, yes, but so desperate as to take her own life? How could he have been so ignorant? She needed him and he’d been cold. A bad husband. An unacceptable father. He conjured an image of Gloria’s face, drunk and incapable. He saw his hands go to her throat. Her eyes turned to surprise when she felt his touch. At first she seemed to hope for a caress, but her surprise turned to a darker realization. As he squeezed, blood rushed to her ears. Her teeth showed and her tongue fell out. It turned blue. Paul blinked and her face changed, the moment changed. She was young and full of laughter on the day they met. Delmont Graves had come to Redmine to see a client, and his daughter had insisted on tagging along. Barred from the room where her father and client sat down, she was left under the watch of a young prison guard. Paul told her a story.

  “This is one about little Tommy,” he started, “and Tommy was a naughty young boy.”

  “Are you sure his name wasn’t little Pauly,” Gloria said, winking.

  Paul blushed. He stood silently for a moment, doubtful on how to proceed.

  “Well, go on then!” Gloria said.

  “Are you sure?”

  She threw her hands on her hips and tapped her toe.

  Paul nodded. “Now,” he said, “everyone knew little Tommy was a foul-mouthed boy—his classmates, his parents, and even his schoolteacher, Ms. Jones. After years of trying, they’d all given up on correcting him, but they certainly weren’t going to encourage him. His parents did what they could at home, and Ms. Jones did what she could in class, but as you can imagine, keeping Tommy from cursing a blue streak was a tough job.”

  “I’ll bet it was,” Gloria said.

  “One day Ms. Jones started a lesson, saying, ‘Okay, class, I’m going to give you a letter of the alphabet, and I want you to raise your hands when you have a word that starts with that letter. We’ll begin with the letter A’”

  Now it was Gloria that blushed, seeming to realize which word a foul-mouthed boy like Tommy would associate with the letter A.

  “I’m sorry,” Paul said, “this story is out of line.”

  “Hush now,” Gloria said. “Get on with it.”

  “Very well,” Paul said. “’We’ll begin with the letter A,’ Ms. Jones said, and of course Tommy raised his hand. Ms. Jones knew better than to call on him, as he might say ass, so she called on bright-eyed Susie in the second row.

  “’Apple!’ Susie said.

  “’Very good, Susie,’ Ms. Jones said. ‘Now everyone, how about the letter B?’”

  Gloria snickered.

  “Some of the kids raise their hands,” Paul said, “but Tommy’s hand was up the highest. Still, Ms. Jones couldn’t call on him, for if she did he might say bastard. Instead the teacher called on quiet little Gloria in the very first row.”

  Gloria batted her eyes and smiled.

  “A beautiful young girl, that Gloria,” Paul said, “her voice was as sweet as a summer breeze when she said, ‘Banana.’

  “’Very good!’ Ms. Jones said, ‘and now class, how about C?’

  “At this letter Tommy’s hand shot up like an arrow. He waved it back and forth. Ms. Jones gave it a split second before opting to call on another student. Heaven forbid she allow little Tommy to say…”

  Gloria’s pink blush went crimson. She slapped him playfully on the shoulder.

  Paul soared at her touch. “So she called on another student, and they said, ‘Carrot.’”

  Gloria raised an eyebrow.
<
br />   Paul knew then that he had her. “Now,” he said, “when Ms. Jones got down to the letter R she found that not a one of her students had raised their hand. Not a single one, that is, except for little Tommy. Ms. Jones thought long, and Ms. Jones thought hard, but she couldn’t come up with a curse word that Tommy might use. So, with an increasing sense of trepidation, she called on the foul-mouthed boy.

  “’Rat!’ Tommy said, beaming triumphantly.”

  Paul watched Gloria’s face switch from curious to stunned. “’Very good, Tommy,’ Ms. Jones said.

  “’Yeah,’ Tommy said, ‘A big bastard rat with a fat ass and a huge cock!’”

  Gloria’s laughter crushed him. He remembered wanting only to hear that sound for the rest of his life. He remembered the way she stuttered nervously when she said goodbye and thanked him for such a good time, as if they’d been on a date.

  And now she’d tried to kill herself?

  “Go on without me,” Paul said.

  Crittendon’s face twisted up in confusion.

  Paul ignored him. He turned to the Western Union counter. The clerk smiled. “I need to send a return on this,” Paul said. He handed the clerk the message.

  “Certainly, sir,” the clerk said. He produced a pad of paper and a pencil.

  “I’m coming back, stop. I’ll-” he felt something hard against his ribs. A single point of pressure, undoubtedly a rusty revolver barrel. After a beat, the clerked looked up from his writing pad.

  “He won’t need to finish that,” Crittendon said.

  The clerk glanced at Crittendon, and then back at Paul.

  “Isn’t that right, Mr. Constantine?” Crittendon said.

  Paul nodded.

  “Let’s take a walk,” Crittendon said.

  “Yeah,” Lee said, “a walk.” He now gripped Sandy’s wrist. The girl was wide-eyed and staring at the spot beneath Paul’s duster where Crittendon had placed his gun.

  Crittendon led Paul with one arm over his shoulder like they were brothers. The man smelled like he hadn’t bathed this year. He kept the revolver tucked tight against Paul’s ribs. They maneuvered through the crowd and out of the station, into the blinding sunlight.

  Outside, the crowd was thinner. The group moved along the station wall until they came to an alley just on the other side of a produce stand, not yet open for the day. The alley was dark and the ground was covered with trash and stacked crates. It stank of rotting fruit.

  “Keep an eye out,” Crittendon said. He shoved Paul into the alley and followed, gun raised. Cyrus Lee stood at the alley mouth with a tight grip on Sandy’s wrist.

  “My wife is in trouble,” Paul said.

  “I don’t care,” Crittendon said.

  “You don’t need me,” Paul said. “You can find him on your own.”

  “Now ya see,” Crittendon said, “I just don’t think that’s true.” He smiled like the childhood bully he still was. Paul’s neck throbbed. His hands went cold. He considered the revolver on his waist. Could he snatch it up and rip off a shot before the fat man burned him down?

  “I think you ain’t letting on as much as you really know about our little freak,” Crittendon said. “See, me and Cyrus, we been thinking. Ain’t that right, Cyrus?”

  “That’s right,” Lee said.

  “We been thinking you’re the only guard that never went near that freak when he was at Redmine. At first we thought you was just scared, you being a yellow belly and all. But we knew someone had been giving that freak all them Beadle books. Couldn’t quite figure it, but then something hit me. Something as big and bright as the day.” He pantomimed a bright, sunny day. “What was it that hit me, Cyrus?”

  “Cajun,” Cyrus said.

  “That’s right,” Crittendon said. “In all that time at Redmine our little freak didn’t say more than a few words, to be sure, but the words he said, they sure sounded like Cajun.”

  “That they did,” Lee said.

  “Get to your point,” Paul said. Suddenly his accent sounded thicker to him than before.

  Crittendon smiled. His eyes grew wild.

  Paul’s hand moved slowly toward his revolver.

  Crittendon spat. The glob splattered against the ground near Paul’s feet.

  “Here’s the point,” Crittendon said. “We’re wondering if you ol’ boys don’t stick together. We’re thinking maybe it wasn’t one against three out there with you and the Boyle twins. Understand? We’re thinking it was really two against two. Ain’t that right, Cyrus?”

  “That’s ri-”

  He was going to say right, Paul thought, but little Sandy’s boot-heel came down on his toes. He cried out and released her hand. Sandy ran down the alley toward Paul. He reached out to her as she came, but Jeb Crittendon intercepted her. He gripped the girl by her hair and used her momentum to pitch her against the alley wall. He pinned her down with a large hand on her tiny chest. He flipped the revolver in his other hand, reared it back, and started the butt end down toward the girl’s face.

  Paul stepped forward and caught Crittendon’s arm at the wrist. His gravedigger’s grip squeezed until the man’s two forearm bones clicked together. Crittendon yelped and dropped the revolver. Paul caught it with his off hand, flipped it, and brought the butt down on the back of Crittendon’s head.

  The fat man tipped over backwards, clutching the back of his head. He curled up and covered his face. Paul corralled Sandy behind him. He stood over Crittendon enraged with the memory of what this man had done to his friend in the prison yard. He hammered Crittendon with blows to the ribs, to the back, and to the arms until he uncovered his face. Paul then worked over the man’s facial features with blind fury. The eyes, the nose, and finally the mouth, the teeth.

  “Stop!”

  Paul looked up to see Cyrus Lee on one knee at the alley mouth. He’d pulled a single-shot Derringer from his boot. A small gun, but not so small it couldn’t open a man’s skull from its current range.

  31

  Roy unbuckled his gun belt, threw it on to his shoulder, and stepped off the road. He marched into the water until he was ankle deep in Lake Michigan. His boots flooded and his feet cooled down—a well-deserved treat after miles of walking in the sun. His skin was on fire. His eyes were bursting dams, his throat a corroded pipe. He began to fill his waterskin but then stopped. Instead he flipped off his hat, opened his shirt, and flung himself down to his knees where he gulped water like a dog.

  At length he stopped drinking. He came back on his haunches and belched. He scooped up a half-gallon of water with his hat and placed it on his head, letting the water splash over his shoulders. His coin bag rested on the sand beneath the surface, dropped from his head when he’d removed his hat.

  Before him was an expanse of green, white-capped water to rival the oceans.

  This was not the water of home. The bayou was a brown, boggy mess. It was ugly and dripping like an infected wound, a series of clogged veins with dangers and traps at every turn. It purveyed death and pain. It didn’t want humans, and it killed them for trespassing.

  But this water was life itself. A cleansing pool. There were no gators or snakes to speak of, only freshwater fish seemingly designed to be food, to gladly give their lives to the prosperity of man. It was no wonder the big city sprouted and thrived on these banks. No wonder civilization set up its permanent camps so close to a loving bounty. If God’s image was reflected anywhere in this world, Roy thought, it was in the water of Lake Michigan.

  He grabbed a handful of sand, squeezed it, and let the dirt fall through his fingers in clumps. He enjoyed the plopping sounds as the sand returned home.

  He filled his waterskin and ate what remained of his food, savoring it to the last. He patted his belly. It was distended and uncomfortable from overdrinking, but it was a good pain and he savored it, too. He absently traced the letters carved into his chest.

  A half-mile to the north was Chicago. The skyline looked like the spiked backbone of a great beast dozin
g in the heat. The thought gave him pause. As much as the city felt like home, as he’d drawn closer he felt more and more unwelcome. A prodigal son, gone wayward and meant never to return. His journey, up until this point, had been fueled by glorious visions of love and revenge. The visions had pushed at his back like hot wind, propelling him toward a dime novel destiny, but the wind had cooled and died. Such toothsome visions were now more difficult to conjure. They were blotted out by a thought he could no longer put away.

  Jesse left.

  McLean hadn’t dismissed her that morning at the Corktown Inn. He hadn’t awakened her happy slumber and asked her to leave so he and Roy could talk. She had left on her own, and was gone before McLean arrived. She had tiptoed quietly away in the dark of dawn. Roy had heard her go. He could admit that now. He heard the creaking floorboards and the tiny strike of wood against wood as the door was secretly pulled shut. He had pushed the sounds out of his mind, pretending he’d never heard them, telling himself there was no need to reach across the bed and find her because she was certainly there, and there was no reason to doubt it. He kept his eyes closed and forced himself back into slumber, knowing when he awakened he’d find her breathing evenly in sleep, her ribs rising and falling, her devils and dragons at home in the warm bed they shared.

  No dice.

  They had shared nothing, or at least not enough. He saw the truth of that now.

  The waves of Lake Michigan rolled in. They whispered. They asked him to keep coming out, to swim into the deep and forget. To swim and swim until nothing but water could be seen. There he could discard the hat, the rope, the bag, the clothes, the boots, the gun. It would all sink away. He could float naked on his back and stare up at the endless blue, up at the foundation of Heaven until God reached down and collected him.

  He stood and began moving forward. In the distance he heard galloping hooves. The pale horse of the apocalypse, he thought. He took more steps. The gallop grew louder. He imagined the reaper upon the pale horse, scythe at the length of its cloaked arm. He saw its hollow eyes and perfect teeth. He welcomed its coming. He closed his eyes and walked blindly into the depths. The gallop grew louder still. The hooves pounded and echoed, drowning out all other sound. He slid off the burlap bag and discarded it. The water gathered around his waist. The hoof-beats pounded in his ears. He slid off the rope and tossed it aside. The water came to his chest. His eyes still closed, he saw visions of the farmhouse burning. And then it was gone. Left behind was an empty field with a black crater in the middle. She wasn’t there. She never was, never would be.