“Okay, so Mister Drew hires talented people, we know that,” said Dot.
“And we know the cartoons do okay for a while, after Henry leaves. Alice was popular for a beat. So was the original actress, Susie. You ever meet her?” asked Norman to Dot.
“Once,” she replied.
“Cute kid.” He finished up his drink and placed the mug on the table. “But still. It doesn’t last. All the talent in the world, and it doesn’t last. He starts spending money on that amusement park he ain’t never going to build.”
Of course Norman knew about that too.
“And the theater,” I said, almost more to myself.
“What theater?” asked Norman.
“The studio starts to fail,” said Dot, getting us back on track.
Norman nodded. “He needs something, anything. To get the studio back in the papers again. Get investors excited again.”
That’s when it finally clicked. “The machine,” I said. “Tom Connor.”
“Yes,” said Norman, looking at me. “So you know about the machine then,” he said, like he approved.
“Kind of,” I said. I couldn’t help but glance over my shoulder, just to check if the light was still as bright.
It was.
“We know that there is one. We know Tom Connor is working on it,” said Dot.
“Was,” corrected Norman.
“Was?” I asked.
Norman raised an eyebrow at me. “Was.”
There was a silence where I suppose we were meant to ask him why. But then Dot asked a different question. Getting us back on track. As she always did. “What does the machine have to do with the ink?”
“It needs ink to work.”
“The pipe,” I blurted.
“What pipe?” asked Dot.
“I thought it was strange, that first day, when Sammy was covered in ink and I had to clean it up. It was from a burst pipe in the closet. The pipe was flowing with ink. But how does it—”
Norman cut me off. “I don’t know how, and I don’t know what’s going on. All I know is that all this ink goes in and comes out and when it comes out it’s different somehow.”
“Different ink.” I thought about it. Now that the pieces had started coming together things were making more sense in my messed-up mind. I could solve more problems. “The ink Sammy was looking for … was crazy for …” I said carefully, making eye contact with Dot.
“Yes,” she said. “Of course. Why would he care so much about regular ink? It’s everywhere. We are an animation studio; we have it everywhere.”
“Everywhere,” I said.
“The machine,” Dot said, turning back to Norman and leaning forward. “You said Mister Drew needs the ink for the machine. Norman, what does the machine do?”
I held my breath waiting for the answer. I almost felt like I didn’t want to know it.
Norman just shook his head. He took his feet off the table and sat up. “I wish I knew. I only watch what I can see. And Mister Drew and that Tom Connor fellow, they were more sneaky than you two. I just know that Sammy isn’t Sammy anymore. The ink, well, I don’t know, but it seems to me like the ink is taking him over. I think it’s the ink that took him.”
“You think he’s alive?” asked Dot.
“I don’t know, but I’ll tell you one thing. That ink has a mind of its own. Goes where it likes …”
“Slips off the page,” I said, thinking about my Cowboy Bendy. Thinking about Sammy’s notebook. Thinking about …
A kind of panic I’d never felt before, not even when the monster was chasing us. Something animalistic and deep down, something past my gut and right into my spine, overtook me in a moment of pure white-hot realization.
“I have the ink,” I said. “I took a bottle from the supply closet, from Sammy’s stash.”
“Well, by now the studio is overrun with it. Mister Drew saw to that,” said Norman.
“No, he didn’t, that’s not fair!” I shouted, but even as I did I thought about my grandfather looking at Mister Drew’s hand, the words “Bad ink.” No, it wasn’t that. It couldn’t be that. “You said it yourself that he hires people with talent,” I said to Norman, “that he’s the one with vision, so none of this was his fault. It’s that Tom Connor. Or maybe Sammy.” I was shaking now. All my feelings were mashed together as fear. I couldn’t pick them apart. I couldn’t split my realization about the ink from the conversation about Mister Drew or from the creature and the violinist and the shadows. The grasping, clawing shadows. All of it was just one big ball of fear.
“Buddy, calm down,” said Dot.
“I can’t, you don’t understand. I have to go!” I did, I had to go.
“It’s okay, Buddy, we should wait a bit longer,” said Dot, standing up and coming over to me, placing a gentle hand on my shoulder.
“I can’t! Don’t you understand? I have the ink. I have the ink at home. It’s in my apartment.” I pulled her hand off me and ran out of the Projector Booth. I didn’t worry if I’d hurt her. I didn’t worry if Norman thought I was crazy. And I also didn’t worry that the creature might find me and catch me. I didn’t worry about any of it because I wasn’t thinking. I wasn’t processing. I was just doing.
I was running home.
I don’t know how I got there or how long it took. I don’t know if I took the subway or ran the whole way. I wasn’t out of breath when I arrived, but I was slicked with sweat, though whether it was from my fear or the heat I couldn’t say.
I don’t know.
I just know that I was home. And I burst into the dark apartment. And I couldn’t hear the silence or the sound of my hard feet hitting the wooden floor, just my heart pumping my blood through my body, thumping in my ears.
I burst into my room.
My ghostly grandfather lay as he always did, flat on his back, the streetlamp making him seem so pale, all skin and bones. I made my way around the bed to his side to look at the drawings. They were how I’d left them, scattered about on the floor, as I’d frantically gone through them, seeing the changes, feeling anxious.
I got to my knees to gather them up. But as I did, my fear came pulsing back. They were blank. All the pages on the floor were blank. I flipped them over, examined both sides. Just blank white paper.
I looked up, frantic. That’s when I saw it. A trail of ink running up the side of the blanket, up along the long sleeves of Grandpa’s nightshirt, tracing up his neck heading for his mouth. Like veins, or like a river of blood, except going up. Toward him. Fingers. Reaching for him.
“No!” I cried out. I leapt up beside my grandfather and shook him. Pulling him up to a sitting position. His eyes burst open wide and he started thrashing about, clawing at my arms holding on to his. He screamed out in terror, or in pain. Or both.
“It’s okay, it’s okay!” I said, but he wouldn’t stop moving, and it wasn’t okay. He was still covered in the ink. I reached up, trying to wipe the ink off his neck with my hand, but he grabbed my wrist and pushed at me hard then, harder than I thought a man his age could push. I fell backward.
“What on earth!” Somehow Ma was in the room, on the bed, reaching for her father. “Papa!” She held his face firmly but gently between her hands. “Papa, wszystko w porządku!”
I could only watch, panting a bit as the old man finally calmed down and stared into my ma’s eyes. He slowly reached up and held her face in his, so they were both cradling each other’s.
“Irena,” he said softly.
“Tak, Papa, tak,” she said. “Irena.”
He smiled slowly then. And nodded. He looked over at me. “Buddy.”
I smiled back, rubbing my wrist where he’d twisted it. “Yes,” I said.
He nodded again.
“Everything’s okay,” Ma said finally in English. She looked over at me. “What happened?”
Then I saw the ink on Grandpa’s cheek. “The ink,” I said, coming over. “We need to clean off the ink.”
She saw it
then and looked down at her hand. There was ink on it too from when she’d grabbed him and then transferred it to his face.
“What on earth …” she repeated quietly. She looked back to Grandpa, and that’s when I knew she saw it, the ink running up the sheets, up his hand, his shirtsleeve, his neck. “What is all this, Buddy?”
“I’ll explain as we clean him off. Let’s get this nightshirt off.” I motioned to Grandpa to raise his arms.
She nodded and explained to him what we were doing. It was a lot easier to communicate with him when you could communicate with him.
We peeled off the nightshirt, and sure enough, the ink had snuck in underneath, leaving a fine trail of ink from his neck all the way to his fingers. I picked up his forearm and looked at it, at the glossy, living blackness. I rubbed my thumb and smudged it. That was good.
I grabbed the nightshirt itself since it was ruined and began to rub at the arm.
“Buddy, don’t,” said Ma.
But I didn’t listen because it made no sense. We didn’t have time. We had to get all the ink off.
All of it.
There wasn’t time to lose. “Get a wet rag, Ma,” I said, still wiping.
“Buddy, stop!”
She held my shoulder. I looked at her in confusion. She looked at me and then at the arm. I stopped.
And I looked at his arm too.
The ink had been pushed away, but beneath it more ink revealed itself.
Numbers.
A tattoo.
* * *
When we learned Pa died, Ma didn’t tell me till that night. I didn’t know she’d spent all day just living her life, doing her work, her chores, taking care of me, with that heavy weight on her heart. That a man in uniform had come to our door. That he’d been direct to the point. That he’d told her the truth.
She told me at night in bed so she could make me feel better, tuck me in, lie beside me, and stroke my hair. Because she wanted me to be ready to be sad. But you can’t always prepare for sadness. You just have to live with it.
I remembered this now, sitting with her, the clock ticking on the wall, my shoulders heavy, my back aching after scrubbing all the ink off Grandpa.
Under the single bulb above the kitchen table, the shadows on Ma’s face made her look much older than she was and very tired. I figured if there was a mirror I’d see the same with me. It felt like the summer had lasted a lifetime, and maybe it had. I don’t know. I’m not sure time works the way I always thought it did.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I said finally.
“There was so much to tell, and you had this new job, and I never saw you. And I had work too. And then you two seemed to be bonding and what’s the point anyway?” she said. I noticed her long, winding sentence mirrored my long, winding thoughts. I came by it honestly, I guessed.
“Start at the beginning.”
Start at the beginning.
Like there is such a thing. There isn’t a beginning. There is only a moment that makes the moments that follow matter.
Ma shook her head because she understood that. “Do you know how many times I’ve tried to figure out the beginning?” She sighed. “Oh, Buddy. It’s so sad.”
I leaned over and took her hand. “It’s okay, I can handle sad.”
“Your pa wanted to come here. He wanted opportunity. So many people do. I came with him and brought you, this little bundle in my arms, because he was my husband. Because he made me believe in the adventure. I wanted your grandfather to come with us. But he had his job, his students.”
“He was a teacher?” I asked.
“Can’t you tell?” She smiled.
“Art …”
She nodded. “Then … then when things started getting scary over there, I begged him to come, I begged him. He was my only family left, and I thought he needed me as much as I needed him. But he refused. He wouldn’t come. He needed to stay for his community, he said. But he did send us his art collection. That he wanted to protect, not himself.” She looked angry and sad and still so very tired.
“I don’t understand. Because they’re worth something? What’s so important about these paintings?” I looked at the one hanging just below the clock, its gilt frame, its bright abstract pattern.
“To him art is more than just a pretty picture. It’s history. It’s …”
“Your soul,” I said, remembering now.
“Yes. The Germans had invaded, and they were taking everything. He wouldn’t leave anyone behind, but he didn’t want them to get their hands on the work. I was so angry at him at the time, but I understand now. When I hear about over there, when I hear about everything that was destroyed … He was right to send his art. But I can never forgive him for not sending himself.” Her eyes were misty with tears.
“I understand that.” I took her hand in mine.
“Then he disappeared. And I didn’t hear from him again.” She looked down at the table, her head bent so low. “I was mourning your father, I was taking care of you, I was working to support us, and these paintings haunted me. I was angry, and I thought he was dead, and I was hurting. So I didn’t think to look any deeper.” A tear fell onto the stained wooden tabletop. Right in the middle of a ring made from a damp glass.
“This all makes sense, Ma,” I said. I wasn’t used to reassuring her. To being the one who comforts. I’d always wanted to take care of her, but that was about making money and her not having to work as hard. Taking care of her sadness, her fears, that was something I wasn’t so prepared for. It was hard. My throat ached. “You shouldn’t feel bad.”
“I tell myself this. But I do. Because I should.”
She squeezed my hand and looked up at me.
“When the war ended, your father’s brother was looking for family. Because that’s what good children do. He learned so much. What they had done, where they had sent people like us. Such horrible things. I am so ashamed. He found Grandpa. A family in a town near the camp where he had been imprisoned was taking care of him. A family, not his family. Not me.” She took in a sharp breath and quickly wiped her cheeks. “Your uncle helped me bring him here. And you know the rest.”
“Ma, you should tell me these things,” I said.
“Like you’re telling me things about your work? Like you and your grandfather don’t have your secret projects?” she said, smiling through her tears.
“That’s different, and you know it,” I said. I took both her hands now in mine.
“Oh, Buddy, I feel so much shame. But you must learn from my mistakes. You have to fight for the people you love. Okay?”
“Yes.” Of course I would. I always would fight for her, for Grandpa.
It was so easy in that moment to make that promise to her, to myself. It seemed so obvious. So clear that of course this would be a thing to do. I had no idea that in a short twenty-four hours, that promise would be tested.
* * *
Once more I didn’t know how I got to where I was going. But it wasn’t from full fear or panic now, but from never having felt so completely overwhelmed before. I had been told so much in such a short span of time. Experienced so much. My eyes had been opened wide to things I’d never even imagined, and my own guilt and confusion pressed down hard on me.
I reached the East River, coming to realize two things: I had judged my grandfather so horribly, and, in the end, it turned out I knew nothing about him or my own family. And that I also knew nothing about Mister Drew, so how could I possibly understand his motivations, what was happening at work? I needed to know his story.
Everyone has a story to tell.
Even if it’s fictional.
I tossed the bag with the papers, pen, ink bottle, rags, and my grandfather’s nightshirt into the black water in front of me. It bobbed for a moment, and then slowly sank.
I didn’t feel good about it. Just more unsettled. The water looked like ink.
There was nothing in me that felt like going to a party. It had been everything I was
looking forward to for the last few weeks, and now it loomed like a dark cloud on a sunny day. I’d been almost hoping, with all the chaos at the studio, the thing would be canceled, but the studio reopened two days later and everyone went back to work as if nothing had happened.
Of course for most people it hadn’t been such a big deal, two days off, a little holiday. But what Dot and I had experienced? What we had seen? Going back into the building was a terrifying thing. I wasn’t in any kind of position to quit—I had to keep making money for my family. But I also knew that I was done searching in the dark corners. I was keeping my head down and leaving before it got dark. Focus on my work.
And if Mister Drew thought it was safe enough for us all to go back inside, well, I trusted him.
Still.
Mostly.
Mister Drew gave a little pep-talk in the lobby. “I know it’s been a tough few days, but we’ve reopened and the work goes on! Let this be a lesson to anyone who thinks they can mess with our studio!” He laughed heartily and everyone applauded, and I exchanged a look with Dot. She made her way over to me as the crowd scattered.
“Hey,” she said. “How are you?”
I couldn’t make eye contact with her. I didn’t want to talk about anything, I just wanted to pretend like none of it had happened. There was real life to focus on. I was done with monsters.
“I have to get to work,” I said, and pushed past her.
She didn’t chase me. Dot didn’t really chase after people.
Funny that I’m sitting here writing this, hoping to reach her.
* * *
The party was Friday, and as the day approached, the storm clouds gathered in my mind. The Music Department was still shut down, and no one had heard anything from Sammy. Dot and I hadn’t even talked about that night because I’d been avoiding her. I don’t think she understood why. I mean, why would she? Well, she probably thought I was still scared about the terrifying creature in the dark, about the violinist. And I was. But I couldn’t tell her the other part. That I was still processing everything Ma had told me. About what had happened to Grandpa during the war.
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