Futile Efforts

by Piccirilli, Tom

  "Sometimes it don't feel that way. They don't shut up. All day long, and every night too. Right outside the window."

  "It used to help me when I turned the TV up really loud. Or the radio."

  "Mama won't let us do that," Broom said with an edge of anguish. "She gets the migraines and has to go lie down in the dark. Almost every day."

  He took out his wallet and drew two twenties from it, handed them to the kid. "Get yourself a Walkman with headphones. Pass it around to your brothers and sisters. Turn up the music when the crows get inside your head."

  "Do they ever stop making noise?"

  "When you get a little older they won't be so bad, and then they eventually stop."

  "That so?" A touch of hopefulness, then the hard glint of reality. "When's that gonna be?"

  There wasn't any answer. "I don't know. A couple more years, probably."

  "That's too long," Broom said in a pained hush, and followed him back to the kitchen, where Myrtle was serving homemade blueberry pie. Two of the other Brooms were helping, scooping out fresh whipped cream, reaching up for the cupboard. One dropped a dish on the floor and said, "Broom!"

  Parks sat again in the seat of his childhood, waited for a full count of sixty, glanced at his brother and told him, "I'm going to sell my parcel of the farm."

  Floyd had a forkful of pie halfway to his mouth. It stuck in the air as if it had hit a brick wall. "What's this? Eh? How's that?"

  Jesus Christ, Parks had still sprung it too fast. Floyd really hadn't heard him, hadn't entirely caught it. A man like Floyd could close himself off to a lot of whatever he didn't want to hear. It was a gift, really, when you got down to it. One that Parks didn't have.

  He had to repeat himself. "I'm selling my half of the farm."

  Now came the death-glare, the red overwhelming rage flooding into Floyd's face until the veins stood out thickly in his forehead and neck, exactly the way it used to happen to their father. "You can't do that. There's no way you can do that. This ain't your land."

  "Yes, it is. Half of it is. I'm selling it."

  The fork was still frozen three inches from Floyd's lips, his arm like rusted iron. "You said, before you left for Hollywood, you told me the farm was mine. You said I could have the dust and the groundhogs and the field mice, you said. The bats in the barn. The skeeters and the droughts and the winters with six feet of snow. You were laughing. You were goddamn dancing, as I recall."

  "I'd just sold my first script then," Parks said. It was an admission as much as an explanation. That day, in all likelihood, had been the happiest of his life. He'd caught the first plane to LAX and hadn't even called back home until last week. It hurt like hell facing up to his own failures, but there was nothing else to do now. "But we never made it legal. I never signed anything over to you. The land is still mine."

  "The hell you need it for out there in Los Angeles? In Hollywood?"

  Here it came, when you could wrap up your biggest mistakes in only a few words. "I botched my career. The studios won't work with me anymore." For a long time he thought it would take a lot longer to explain, but no, there it was.

  Floyd pushed his seat back, got up and left the kitchen. The Brooms finished their pie as if nothing was occurring, as though nothing had ever happened in this place before.

  "The hell did you do to my rifles, you son of a bitch!" Floyd screamed from the other room.

  Parks tried to address Myrtle, whose passive facade still hadn't altered. "I need enough cash to give me a small stake. It won't be a lot but it'll be enough for me to start shooting an indie project. I have to start over."

  Myrtle blinked and asked, "You goin' to Indiana?"

  "Independent," Parks said. "If I put in enough money up front, I'll find financing along the way to finish and get a distributor. I can make a second chance work."

  "This is our home," Myrtle said. Her voice was utterly without tone or emotion.

  "It's mine too. As long as I've been away from here, it's still my home."

  Parks couldn't believe he was stooping to this kind of low, saying these lies. He was definitely Hollywood material. They'd be buying him rounds at the Viper Room for this kind of shit. They never should've given him the boot, he was the kind of belly-crawler they should've embraced forever.

  She'd taken on just a hint of animation, a curious but aimless expression pressing the corners of her face like somebody's thumbs working cookie dough. It tugged the angles of her face into a perplexed frown, and she gazed around, perhaps a bit surprised by her surroundings. "No, it's not. It takes a heap o' livin'. Didn't you never hear that before?"

  "No."

  "A heap o' livin' to make a house a home. A heap o' sun an' shadder. You ain't got no light nor shadows neither around here no more."

  Parks felt his blood suddenly alive in his wrists and throat, his pulse kicking up hard. He glared at Myrtle and said, "More than you'd think."

  "Where's my cartridges, you snake?" Floyd shouted, flinging stuff into walls. "How the hell you gonna go stealin' a man's shotgun shells?"

  The Brooms had finished with their meal and sat quietly staring, waiting.

  Floyd stood in the kitchen doorway, sneering and fuming, but underneath it all Parks thought he saw a little relief in his brother's face. How he must hate the land for its arrogant dust and weeds and erosion, the constant fretting over rain and heat and the price of crops. The bats, the snow, the tractor sticking in the mud. In one swoop, Parks had just unloaded half his brother's burden.

  But a man had to walk his track and play out his entire string. Floyd would make the effort to cross Parks up, if only to hold onto his minimal pride. He held Papa's gun out and pointed it at Parks. "You kids go on now. Find somethin' to do."

  "Yes, Pa," three or four of the Brooms said. They all paraded from the kitchen in size order, the years wearing thinner and thinner behind them, being erased as the line continued on, but their souls seeming so archaic trapped between participants of ancient battles, until the shortest Broom wandered out without a word. Myrtle showed no life and didn't move, except she had begun to slowly, softly rub at the back of her skull.

  It had been bad drama from the beginning, but Parks bundled his hopes on it. He had no choice but to follow through on this course, finish out the hand he'd dealt himself. He'd caused his brother enough trouble, and he didn't need to make it worse by having the man feel even more ineffectual and stupid. They'd both had enough of that.

  Parks gave a strained bark and came up out of his seat as if he was terrified. He made a flustered grab for the pistol like he was actually afraid it might go off, like he was fighting for his life. He clipped Floyd on the chin, and knocked him backwards over the corner of the table. Parks stuck the Colt in his belt.

  "You rotten little bastard," Floyd said.

  "Once the movie hits, I'll buy the land back for you," Parks said. "Whatever it costs. Or get you another farm, if you prefer. Or set you up in a different business."

  "I saw a review for your last movie," Floyd told him, getting to his feet and folding himself into a chair. "In the paper."

  "Yeah, you did?" He was genuinely impressed that his brother actually looked at a paper. He figured a long time ago that Floyd was willfully illiterate.

  "Called you pretentious, they did."

  "Yes, quite a few of them."

  "And cryptic."

  A word that Parks once liked, but now didn't. At first he thought it would help him achieve cult status, that the underground would come to his aid. That the flick might have a new run at life on DVD, but none of it had happened. "That's right."

  "Artsy fartsy."

  Parks settled back on his heels. So maybe his brother really couldn't read. None of the print reviews had used the term artsy fartsy, but some wiseass critic on a major network had, holding up a balloon and letting the air out slowly, so it sounded like it was breaking wind. You just had to love stuff like that.

  He focused again on Floyd's gray lips. "Th
at so?"

  "Said you had little girls in there. With their tops off. Showing off their pink buds. Got in trouble with all them civic watch groups. Good church-goin' people protesting."

  "It wasn't quite like that," Parks said without much conviction.

  The girls were young and did flash some skin, but the worst part of it came later. A sixteen year old started claiming he'd promised her a part in the film in exchange for sex. Her mother started making some noise to the tabloids. Before the papers completely exploded, she took a payoff, but on her heels came another girl making the same allegation. The studio execs now had him pegged as both a pretentious prick and a liability. You could be one but not the other. The fact that both girls made up their stories didn't even come into play. All that mattered was he'd been stupid enough to leave himself vulnerable. It had taught him an important lesson just a little too late.

  But he also knew that nothing mattered more than cash. If he could prove himself with another hit, nobody would care about past folly or blunders. It was the penance he'd pay, learning to toe the corporate line. He didn't give a damn anymore about art, he just wanted to get back into the action. He'd been going crazy ever since he had to give up his parking space at the studio.

  But why take it out on Floyd? Just like his father, his brother never had a chance in this world and accepted the truth of the matter, and kept right on moving through life without letting the regret break his will. Parks had gotten there, been at the top for all of two years or so, and now kept falling off the big edge without any bottom in sight.

  "My head," Myrtle said, and began to limp forward. "I need to go lie down."

  Floyd touched her elbow as she went by but made no other effort to help. He scowled at Parks and again the relief seemed to smooth out the rugged creased in his features, as if he was glad the fight was finally over and it wasn't his fault for losing. "You can stay the night. Not because you're my blood but because I don't set any man out of my house once I've invited him in. I might shoot you, but I won't kick you into the dark. That's how a man acts. I get up at dawn. That's five thirty, case you don't remember, and I'm sure you don't. Don't be here when I rise."

  "I won't."

  They walked into the living room together, side by side, and in his brother's shadow he felt small and feeble again. Strange it should hit him all at once like that. None of the children were in sight, and the house felt very much the same way it did when Parks was a kid–empty, impeded, and mute with unvoiced rage and fear.

  "You're a damn heartless fool," Floyd said, but there was an instant before he moved off where he might have wanted to reach out, make contact again. It was too much, after all this time. They both shrugged away in opposite directions, and Floyd went to his bedroom where Myrtle waited with a wet washcloth draped around the back of her neck, and closed the door.

  Parks found a jug of moonshine under the sink and poured himself four fingers. The first taste of it made him want to vomit, but after that it was like water. A subtle warmth pervaded him but the band around his chest kept on contracting. Maybe he'd go through all this just to get back to L.A. and go toes up from a heart attack. That might get somebody interested in the movies again, cryptic or not.

  He finished the liquor and still wanted more. Jesus, it was amazing how quickly your old tastes came back, how easily you slipped back into your shoddy boots. Your past was always waiting around the corner with a net, ready to yank you back. He poured another half glass and returned the jug, walked out to sit with his grandfather.

  Père Hull took one look at Parks and said, "You got ghosts, boy."

  "Doesn't everybody?"

  "Yeah, but most not so bad as you. Worst case I seen in forty years." Père leaned over the arm of his wheelchair, peering closely, the teal scarf overflowing from his lap. Parks was about to ask who else had them this bad, but Père beat him to it. "A traveling preacher fella come through town at the time, in middle of July, set up his tent and had an all-night sing. I could hardly see him 'cause'a all the ghosts he carried wrapped around him. He had a bowed back from carrying them for so long. They nearly snapped him in two. He was dead by that winter."

  "I bear up," Parks said.

  "Your mama's behind you."

  "I know."

  "I can't really see her face, but it's her, all right, that much is clear. Aunt Tilly, she's holding your left hand, and Baby Sis Claudine gripping your right. She was my youngest cousin on my Pa's side, died when she was five. She always grabbin' on somebody. Those hands hurt you some tonight, don't they?"

  "Yes."

  "You should visit all their graves. They might loosen up a touch then."

  Parks had thought about it before, but he was scared that if he showed up at the cemetery, they might wind up tightening their grip even more. He never should have come back. Should've stayed in L.A. and just had the lawyers mail the papers. He sipped the moon and checked his watch. It wasn't even nine o'clock yet, and there wasn't a sound in the house except the soft murmurs of the TV. Some sitcom where families laughed together and helped each other through the tough times.

  "You should go before you pass out," said Père. "You ain't used to that kind of drinking no more. You sleep past five AM and Floyd might just tie you to the bed and beat hell out of you."

  "You're right." Parks was already feeling the effects, and figured it would be wiser to grab a whore at Louie's and pay her for the night, get up early to catch the eight AM bus. He took out his wallet and figured he had just enough. Mama wouldn't follow him in there. "Sorry about all this, Gramp."

  "Don't be. We all got our loads and hardships. You'll either make it right later on, or you won't."

  "I will."

  "Maybe so. Probably be better for you in the end if you did."

  There was nothing left to say to that. Parks got his jacket back on, picked up his satchel, sensed the potential and promise of the script inside, took one last look around the place, and flipped open the busted screen door.

  There was a sudden blur of silver motion in front of him–he thought for an instant that his mother had taken shape, come in to hug him goodbye one last time–and then something shattered his right eye.

  The pain was so intense he couldn't even scream for a few seconds, and found himself on his knees gasping and writhing against the wall. As he trembled and drew in a deep breath to shriek, he felt a wad of cotton being thrust into his mouth, a thick band of tape sealing against his lips. They used twine on his wrists.

  It happened so fast, with the same kind of often-practiced actions as they'd shown in the kitchen. Some Brooms had scissors in hand, others held ten penny nails or wire. He couldn't make them all out but there seemed to be more kids now than he'd thought. So many of them that they crowded the room.

  They'd brought Floyd's toolbox inside.

  In agony, Parks turned his head aside. He saw Père Hull's body jittering and contorted in his wheelchair, the crippled left foot thrust straight out, the man's skinny arms pulled unnaturally far behind him as he convulsed. The crocheting needles quivered in his flesh, stuck somewhere in his face, through the tongue or in his ears. Or somewhere else. The Brooms covered the old man and were carefully handing each other tools, using them on Père in ways Parks couldn't quite distinguish, then replacing each back in the box, dripping.

  As Parks thrashed again he realized a screwdriver had blinded him and was still jutting out of his head. Jesus, he thought, it must be wedged into my brain. How else would it not fall out? If he wasn't crazy before he'd have to be now.

  The television was still on, low, the laugh track proceeding on and on with tinny unreal hilarity, and Parks wanted to scream at the kids to turn it up, it's not as bad if you drown the crows out with some chatter and laughter and noise.

  But Myrtle got migraines.

  He struggled but his hands still hurt. He ought to be able to break free of a knotted piece of twine but Baby Sis Claudine and Aunt Tilly were holding on too harshly. They wouldn't l
et go.

  The Brooms paraded before him, the same angelic face and the same primitive soul, until the shortest Broom pressed a cheek to his without a word. The children moved to him now with the tools and scissors and he remembered what the hideous voices used to say to him when he was a boy, how they'd command and beg and beguile, and as the shadder continued to thicken around him they came for his other eye, and he knew this was going to take a good long while.

  Introduction to "Making Faces"

  by Gary Braunbeck

  In William Goldman's great suspense novel Magic, one of the characters--a professional magician--sums up his craft with a single, short, profound line: "Magic is misdirection."

  You are about to be misdirected to startling effect, something at which Tom Piccirilli excels. The misdirection I'm talking about isn't cheating (like Agatha Christie did with so many of her later mysteries, not providing the reader with important information in order to help them put the clues together), no; the misdirection to be found in "Making Faces" is the masterful sleight-of-hand that can only be done by an expert, someone who can make you watch his left hand when in truth it's the right to which you should be paying attention...but of course don't realize until it's too late.

  It's no coincidence that Tom is also an accomplished and award-winning poet, because only one who understands the power of distilling language down to its barest, most vital essentials--the crystalline image, the precise metaphor, using only one word where others would employ ten--can master the kind of wondrous, chilling misdirection that makes a tale like "Making Faces" as powerful and haunting as it is. In the hands of a more impatient or careless writer, the subject matter of this story could have quickly reduced to the trivial; but in the hands of one who understands that magic is misdirection, it's a dazzler.

  Just bear in mind--what you see happening and what you hear spoken does not necessarily have a damn thing to do with what's really going on. Watch yourselves.

  –Gary Braunbeck, author of IN SILENT GRAVES and GRAVEYARD PEOPLE