Black & White

by Lewis Shiner

  Vaughan was probably comfortable with the idea of killing trespassers. On the other hand, he might be reluctant to shoot up the Bynum house, or Bynum’s own grandson. Michael was kin, and if there were secrets in the Bynum house, he had the right to know.

  Monday, November 1

  At his hotel the next day, sitting at the breakfast bar with his drawing board, he could not make himself concentrate. He saw that he wouldn’t sleep decently again until he either went through with it or gave up on the idea altogether. Giving up seemed the harder of the two.

  After lunch he went to a Home Depot and bought a putty knife, window putty, latex gloves, a glass cutter, a flashlight, a utility knife, and a roll of white duct tape.

  “Doing some breaking and entering?” the cashier asked.

  “That’s right,” Michael said. “Watch for me on the news tomorrow.” He hoped his smile looked more natural than it felt.

  At Thrift World he bought a dark brown pillowcase to hold everything. Then he went to his hotel room and watched TV, unable to say afterwards what he’d seen.

  He ate dinner with Denise and Rachid. After Rachid went off to do homework, Denise tried to talk Michael out of going, then retreated into a hurt and angry silence.

  Michael decided to wait for midnight at his hotel. As he left, Denise said, “If you do this, I want you to call me as soon as you’re away from there. And if you change your mind, call me too.”

  Michael nodded, realizing that he had turned his cell phone off after the funeral to avoid Ruth and never turned it on again. “It’ll be late,” he said.

  “I’ll be awake,” she said, and closed the door on him.

  *

  He got on the road by 12:30. The car’s heater couldn’t take the chill out of his hands and feet. All the landmarks from his first trip had faded in the darkness, and once past West Smithfield it got increasingly hard to find his way. The Bynum house was on him before he knew it so he drove past for a couple of miles, then turned around and drove slowly back. He turned his lights off before he was in sight of the house and pulled well off the road into a patch of weeds and dried grass.

  He closed the car door soundlessly and left it unlocked. He was wearing black jeans and a navy blue sweatshirt. No ski mask; he wanted Vaughan to recognize him if it came to that, rather than be shot as a burglar or, God forbid in rural North Carolina, a terrorist. He had the bag of tools in his left hand, which was now sweating.

  Henry was the first obstacle. If he was wrong about the dog, it was all over before it began.

  He’d barely entered the driveway when Henry started to bark. Michael stood still and waited, heart pounding. Hurry, he thought, get over here before you wake Vaughan.

  The moon was past full, the skies clear, and Michael saw the huge Shepherd galloping across the field toward him in full cry, a bounding blur of gold and black. “Henry!” Michael said, a shouted whisper. Two hundred yards away, Vaughan’s trailer was still dark. “Henry!” he said again, louder, suddenly afraid the dog could not hear anything over his own barking.

  The dog was 50 feet away and closing fast. I’m going to die, Michael thought. Right here. He stood his ground and one last time said, “Henry! Heel!” And, remembering, snapped his fingers twice.

  Henry threw on the brakes, his hindquarters sliding around on him as he backpedaled. By the time he stopped he was facing the other direction, and needed only a few minor adjustments to end up in heel position on Michael’s left side. He looked up at Michael and panted. Michael leaned over to scratch the dog’s chest. “Good dog, Henry,” he said. “Good dog.”

  A light went on in the trailer.

  There was a ditch to the left of the driveway. Michael snapped his fingers once and said, “Henry. Go.” Then he scrambled into the ditch and lay on his stomach with his face pressed into his tool bag.

  The night was full of noises: wind in the dry leaves, crickets, the deeper chattering of frogs. Even so he heard the creak as the trailer door opened. Vaughan’s voice called, “Henry? Henry, what are you doing?”

  “Go,” Michael whispered, and Henry ran toward the trailer.

  Michael forced himself to lie still despite a sudden, overwhelming need to urinate. You were fine ten seconds ago, he told his bladder. You’re bluffing.

  “What have you got out there?” Vaughan said.

  Henry barked, once.

  Please, Michael thought. Please don’t come look.

  “That didn’t sound like a rabbit bark. Were you chasing rabbits? Were you chasing rabbits, boy?” Vaughan’s voice had gotten husky, nearly crossing the line into baby talk. Michael pictured him roughing up the dog’s fur.

  If he knew I was listening, Michael thought, he’d be humiliated. He’d kill me for sure.

  “You want me to come see? Is that what you want?” Henry barked again. “You want me to come see what you’ve got?”

  The voice sounded closer. It could be the wind, Michael told himself.

  “Well, I don’t want to see what you’ve got. I want to go back to sleep. Now you run along and be a good boy.” Henry gave one final bark, a simple cry of joy from a being whose life was black and white, who had only to distinguish between friends, intruders, and food. Michael envied him.

  The trailer door closed. Michael lay still as long as he could, which in fact was not long at all. He put the shed between himself and the trailer, hurried to the trees on the far side of the driveway, and let his bladder go. Tears of relief came up in his eyes.

  He zipped up and turned back to the road, where Henry waited for him, tail wagging. Michael snapped his fingers twice, and Henry fell in step with him. “Traitor,” Michael said. “You’d have given him my name and the license number of my car if you could talk.”

  He retrieved his bag of tools and approached the rear of the house. He had the thought that he could turn around and go to his car and be safe in bed at the hotel in an hour. He pushed the thought away.

  He sat on the back stoop, dried his sweaty hands on his pants leg, and put on a pair of latex gloves. Then he fished around in the bag for the duct tape. Everything made too much noise: the clink of metal on concrete as he set down the bag; the ripping sound as he slowly peeled away a strip of tape. He wrapped the loop of tape around one hand, sticky side out, and cut it free from the roll. He stuck the loop to the glass pane nearest to the lock and pressed it firmly in place. Shielding the flashlight with his left hand, he looked at the glass. It was secured with quarter round and covered with multiple layers of paint, so plan A, where he scraped away putty and replaced it when he was through, bit the dust.

  That left plan B, the glass cutter. He’d cut a lot of glass for frames at Pratt, and it didn’t take him long to get the hang of it again. He cut out the entire pane, as close to the frame as he could. It took the longest five minutes of his life, and when he finally lifted the glass free, his nerves had terminally frazzled. He set the glass on his tool bag, reached through the hole, and had his gloved hand on the inner knob when his confidence failed.

  Vaughan hadn’t turned off an alarm when he let Michael into the house that day. Maybe he activated one at night? A few feet away, Henry scratched himself. No, Michael thought, there’s his alarm.

  He cranked back the deadbolt, twisted the button on the inner knob, and opened the door.

  Silence.

  He was sweating so hard his eyes stung from it. He cut another long strip of tape and cut it again lengthwise. With the two narrow pieces of tape he put the windowpane back in the frame. The tape was a reasonable match for the white paint on the door, at least by flashlight. Unless Vaughan looked closely, or had some reason for suspicion, it could pass for a while. He peeled off the other tape he’d been using for a handle and put it in his tool bag.

  He made sure everything else was in the bag and then stepped into Wilmer Bynum’s kitchen. Before he could close the door, Henry whined a complaint from the porch. “Don’t embarrass me,” Michael said, as he let the dog inside. “I’m tr
usting you, here.”

  The house had few windows, so he felt safe enough taking a quick look around with the flashlight. In the dark again, he oriented himself by the greater darkness of the doorway that led to the dining room and made his way to the front hall and the stairway.

  Henry followed in patient silence as he climbed the stairs. At the top landing he risked the flashlight again, masking the glow with his fingers. A hallway ran down the center of the second floor. The first door on the left led to what must have been Wilmer’s room. It held a king-size bed, a big screen TV, and a dresser full of argyle socks, white boxers, and old-fashioned tank top T-shirts. Wife-beater shirts, a girlfriend of Michael’s used to call them.

  In the top drawer was a German Luger. Michael stared at it for a long minute. The temptation nearly overwhelmed him. What better antidote for his fear than a gun in his hand? Then his better judgment kicked in, and he made himself close the drawer and turn away.

  The walk-in closet was full of clothes, the polyester pants and wide-collared dress shirts that so many old men ended up in. They smelled of detergent and the cedar that lined the walls. The shoes, neatly arrayed on the closet floor, reflected the glow of the flashlight.

  He found Regina’s room across the hall. Doilies and framed photos of Wilmer sat on top of an empty dresser; her closet held only cleaning supplies.

  Next to the bedrooms were two gleaming tiled bathrooms, across the hall from each other, then two bedroom additions. Michael couldn’t help but wonder which was the guest room where his father had spent his first night at the farm, where Ruth had come to him in the night and sealed the peculiar relationship that had, in the end, cost him everything.

  Despite their haphazard exteriors, the bedrooms perfectly matched the rest of the house: hardwood floors, double-hung windows, crown molding all around. It was evidence of Wilmer Bynum’s contempt for appearances and the surface of things. Given that Michael shared his genes, he was glad to find something in the man to admire.

  Still, it was not the revelation he’d been hoping for. He’d found someone else’s memories, lovingly and bizarrely enshrined, but no secrets. Every moment he stayed put him more at risk. He’d proven his point, shown his flag of bravery, and that was going to have to be enough.

  He moved quickly down the stairs and through the dining room, Henry’s nails clicking the hardwood beside him. He opened the back door and then stopped with his hand on the outside knob.

  Why were all the cleaning supplies upstairs instead of in the kitchen?

  He turned back, opened the pantry door, and leaked light past his fingers. No shelves, no brooms, no cans, no water heater. No dog food. The floor was an empty square, four feet on a side, set back into the wall of the kitchen. Henry sat and stared into the emptiness, tense and alert.

  No, Michael thought, something is not right here.

  At that moment he heard Vaughan’s voice, faintly, outside. “Henry! Where you at, boy?”

  The dog’s ears went straight up and he bolted out the open back door. Michael, blinded by panic, fought the urge to follow. He didn’t know where Vaughan was, didn’t know if he could see the rear of the house. Instead he eased the door closed and turned the lock, putting it back the way it had been. Then he stepped into the pantry and shut the door.

  Don’t come into the house, he thought. Please do not come in this house.

  He was sweating again. He pushed the stem of his watch to light the dial. It was 2:25. Fifteen minutes, he thought. If nothing happens by then, I’ll try slipping out the back.

  He lowered himself to a sitting position against the back wall. As he eased down, he put his left hand against the side wall for balance.

  The wall moved.

  At the same moment he heard Vaughan’s voice on the front porch and the sound of a key in the lock. Vaughan was talking to the dog again, though Michael couldn’t make out the words.

  Michael risked the flashlight. There, at waist height, where the left hand wall met the door jamb, there was a button: white-on-white, virtually impossible to see from outside. Michael pushed it and felt the left wall of the closet open out into darkness. A damp, earthy smell hung in the cooler air there. Beyond the opening he saw stairs leading down.

  Vaughan and the dog were now in the foyer. “What are you trying to tell me?” Vaughan said.

  He wants you to meet his new best friend, Michael thought. So we can all play games together. He switched off the flashlight and choked up his grip on the pillowcase of tools to keep it from clinking. In absolute silence he got to his feet, slipped through the door, found a handle on the other side, and closed it behind him.

  He felt his way down the stairs in darkness, and only when he got to the bottom did he try the light again.

  “Holy shit,” he whispered.

  The room was wider and longer than the house above it, 100 feet by 80 or so. The suspended ceiling was low, barely eight feet from the green linoleum floor. The walls were cheap paneling for four feet, then white paint over sheetrock the rest of the way up. Chairs folded along one wall looked like they could seat a hundred people.

  Across the front wall spread a gigantic rebel flag, 9 feet long and 6 feet high. On either side were banners emblazoned with the Celtic Cross and the logo of the Night Riders of the Confederacy. In one corner stood a seven-foot high, plain wooden cross; in the other a US flag—substantially smaller than the Confederate—drooped from a pole.

  There was a six-inch high platform in front of the rebel flag, supporting an antique wooden lectern. In the corner by the US flag was a plain wooden door, locked with a deadbolt. Along the wall opposite the chairs stood two metal cabinets with triple padlocks. The cabinets smelled of machine oil and Michael involuntarily pictured the guns inside.

  He felt physically ill. He wanted out of that room more than he could remember ever wanting anything before.

  The desire was in inverse proportion, he knew, to his chances of getting away. Already Vaughan and Henry were standing at the closet door above.

  Briefly he considered lying in wait where the stairs emptied into the room and trying to bash Vaughan over the head with one of the folding chairs. Even if he got away with it, Henry would certainly turn on him. It was a comic book idea, not worthy of him. Why hadn’t he brought the gun from upstairs?

  There were no alternatives, no hiding places, no dark corners, no emergency exits. Only…

  The ceiling.

  He held his flashlight in his mouth and put his tool bag on top of one of the cabinets. Both cabinets were bolted to the wall, solid as bedrock. He hooked one arm over the top and braced his foot against the molding of the half-paneled wall, struggling to keep from banging the hollow metal with his knees. Lying on his back, stretched across the two cabinets, he used both hands to push one of the acoustical tile squares upward and to the side.

  There was room for him. Barely.

  He put the bag of tools in first. He could hear Vaughan at the top of the stairs, working the latch of the inner door. “You think somebody’s down here, boy? I think you’re crazy. I think you’ve been eating loco weed again. That what you’ve been doing?”

  Michael slithered into the space between the ceiling tiles and the heavy wooden joists that held the floor above.

  He’d worked for a record store the summer after his freshman year at Pratt, and he’d had to go into the ceiling to hang displays. Like this one, it had been filthy with dust and insulation, crowded with ductwork. He’d learned to negotiate the metal framework that held the tiles, a framework like the one under him now, suspended from the joists above with strands of wire the thickness of coat hangers.

  Sweat flowed into his eyes, turning his vision red. He blinked it away and shifted himself around, feeling blindly for the loose tile, lowering it into its frame just as the lights clicked on in the room below.

  The effect was eerie, blades of light stabbing up around the edges of the tiles. It made Michael feel conspicuous. He switched off his own light
and settled slowly into the most comfortable position he could find.

  His chest heaved. He opened his mouth wide and felt the sweat rain off him. Even Vaughan is going to smell me at this rate, he thought.

  Henry certainly did. Michael could hear him on the linoleum below as he trotted in circles around the room, whining.

  “What is it, boy? What do you think is down here?”

  Henry tried to answer, clearly frustrated at Vaughan’s inability to understand, his voice modulating from whine to growl to bark.

  “Henry!” Vaughan said, the dog quieted. “What are you looking up for?”

  They were directly underneath where Michael knelt. This is it, he thought, and willed himself to not exist. Nobody here, he thought. There’s nobody here.

  “When we was upstairs, you wanted down. Now you want up again?”

  Reacting to Vaughan’s tone, Henry barked once in affirmation.

  Good dog, Michael thought.

  “That’s it,” Vaughan said. “I’ve lost enough sleep over you tonight. I’m going to bed.”

  *

  Michael stayed in the ceiling, in darkness, for another thirty minutes. His sense of relief was so powerful that he drifted momentarily into sleep, waking disoriented and panicky.

  Taking one step at a time, deathly afraid of making a mistake in his eagerness to be gone, he finally switched on the flashlight, worked the tile free, and lowered himself to the cabinet.

  He was filthy, the dust and sweat having formed a thin layer of mud over his exposed skin. He cleaned his glasses as best he could, then took his sweatshirt off and used it to mop tile crumbs and footprints and dirt from the top of the cabinets. He swept the residue underneath, then put the shirt on and started for the stairs.

  Something made him hesitate. Partly from curiosity, partly from fear that Vaughan might still be lurking upstairs, he swept the flashlight around the room. The linoleum was scuffed and worn, the wooden panels warped and faded, the ceiling tiles gray with age. This was not some recent addition that Vaughan had made; it had to date back to the fifties or earlier.