City Fishing

by Steve Rasnic Tem

  Annie felt blessed, richer than she could ever have imagined. Who needed a fancy mirror when the combs seemed able to make each window, each shiny surface the clearest of mirrors? She tried out each comb she found, at least once, spending hours sitting, humming to herself, the combs harvesting all the tension from her head.

  And still it was the original comb, the one she had first found under her pillow, nibbling at her head, that was her favorite. She let it mouth her long hair every chance she could.

  But her mother was not as enamored with the things. “They scare me,” she’d say, “all these shiny, sharp, toothy combs. Where’d they all come from? Can you tell me that?”

  Annie just smiled a lazy smile, the only kind of smile she could manage these days. Broad smiles, grins, they all seemed just a little angry to her now. “I don’t know. Does it matter? Maybe the angels left them,” Annie said.

  “That’s crap,” her mother said, trying to remove a particularly sharp-toothed comb that had gotten snagged on her sweater. She got it out finally, but in the process lost a small swatch of material.

  Annie just smiled.

  Like their mother, the twins grew to dislike and distrust the combs. They’d sit down in front of the TV to watch cartoons and a wayward comb would work its way out from under the living room rug, snag their socks and scrape their ankles. They’d reach into their toy boxes for a truck or gun and one or several combs would bite them. And early one morning Tommy found his pet kitten stiff and matted in the front yard, a long shiny rat-tailed comb protruding from one ear.

  More and more the family found combs soiled with the occasional fleck of red.

  At dinner a spoon might arise from the soup with a small comb nestled in its hollow. The hamburger grew crunchy with their discarded teeth. They collected in boxes, in bags, in suitcases and every unused pocket. They gathered in the cold dark beneath the steps. They held meetings in the mailbox.

  “I’m gonna sell some,” Annie’s mother announced one day. “You can keep that first one you found; you seem to like it best anyway. But we need the money. I’m sellin’ the rest.” She waited for Annie to say something. The twins were cranky, complaining about going with their mother, afraid to help her pick up the combs. They didn’t want to touch them. Annie said nothing, just continued stroking her hair with her favorite comb. Her mother looked almost disappointed that she didn’t get an argument.

  Not bothering to repackage them, her mother carried them away in the vessels in which they’d naturally gathered. She filled their old car with suitcases, jars, bags, and boxes, cans and glasses and pots and pans full of combs. The car jangled musically as she and the twins sped off for town.

  While they were gone Annie dreamed of unseen presences, riches by the bagful, and a quiet place where the combs could make love to her hair. For hours she waited for her family’s return.

  “They wouldn’t take ’em, none of ’em!” her mother shouted, slamming through the door. “The recycle man said they weren’t any metal he’d ever seen, and all the other stores said they weren’t good as combs anyway. Too sharp. Might hurt somebody, they all said.”

  “Where are the combs now?” Annie asked quietly, stroking her hair.

  “At the dump, that’s where! That’s where they belong—bunch of junk! Lord knows I wasn’t going to haul ’em all the way back here!”

  If her mother expected an argument, she wasn’t going to get one from Annie this time, either. Annie held her last remaining comb to her ear, and then looked up at the ceiling. Her mother looked up, too. “What the hell?” she began.

  “You wanted things. That was your dream,” Annie said, as the metallic rain began. “You gave me the dream, Momma. And now we’re rich. Just listen to all we have.”

  The sound on the roof was unmistakable. Metal against metal. Metal against gutter, against shingle. Comb against comb, a steady downpour.

  Her mother ran to the front window. Annie could see past her, through the window and into the front yard. Where thousands of combs fell in a shimmering, silver-toothed deluge.

  Her mother turned from the window. “Annie!” she screamed. Her mother dashed across the room. The twins were bawling. “Annie!” Her mother reached for her, angry and scared. “Annie, give me that comb!”

  The comb flew from Annie’s hand like an escaping bird. It landed in her mother’s hand, pulled her mother’s fingers around it like the individual bits of a fancy-dress ensemble. Then it pulled her hand to her head and began to comb.

  Annie smiled her lazy smile. The floor grew soft with the thick pile of her mother’s harvested, blood-clotted hair, her mother’s discarded pain.

  FATHER’S DAY

  “I’m not going, Amy! Why should I?”

  “Because he’s sick and it’s Father’s Day. Mark needs to meet his grandfather.”

  Amy exasperated him. Her need “to do the right thing” usually meant he was to do the right thing. “He’s my father, Amy!”

  Amy looked up at him with her brow slightly wrinkled, mouth tensed. “We’re supposed to be a family.”

  Will looked away, sighed, and shook his head. “All right. We’ll go.”

  “Don’t go on my account. The decision’s yours.” She always said that.

  “No, you’re right. Maybe it won’t be so bad with you and Mark there.”

  Will accepted her hug, but found himself looking past her, out the window to where Mark was playing in the backyard. He had a hammer and was pounding a stake into the grass. Will felt a sudden surge of anger. He started to say something, but didn’t.

  Then he thought of his father lying on his sickbed, and he began to shake. His vision blurred and he could no longer see his son.

  They stopped off at a bookstore on the way to the airport. Will was a compulsive reader, a habit both Amy and Mark complained about. Of course, he’d compromised again, and cut his reading almost in half, forcing himself to participate in family activities he had no interest in or talent for. But that much made them happy; they were so eager, both of them so naturally romantic they could only see him as fully involved in their lives. They couldn’t see the continual distraction, the faraway gaze he knew he constantly wore. It wasn’t that he had no interest or that he didn’t try; there were just so many things for him to think about.

  He was working his way through a shelf of paperback mysteries when he realized he’d been only vaguely looking at the books, and focusing the rest of his attention on what Mark was doing. It was like that most of the time he took the boy into a store with him, as if he were waiting for Mark to do something wrong, to make one false step.

  Amy called it pouncing, like some great cat on a small deer. He usually exploded at what he saw to be her self-righteousness, her holier-than-thou attitude, but he often wondered if she had a point. He certainly seemed to notice more of Mark’s little transgressions than she did, but couldn’t that just be because she didn’t want to notice, that she wanted him to be the bad guy?

  Will heard a slapping noise and wheeled. Mark was walking up and down the aisle, patting the fronts of the books with his fingertips.

  “Mark!” Will swooped down on the boy, thinking in irritation that Amy might be watching. He shook Mark by the shoulders. “That’s no way to act in a store!”

  Amy was at their side immediately. She looked at Mark, opened her mouth to say something, but then apparently thought better of it. Mark stood with his head down, that insolent set to his mouth he always got when reprimanded. It angered Will instantly; he felt a flashing sensation behind his eyes, and had to blink them rapidly to regain control. He wanted to hit the boy, slap that mouth right off him.

  Confused about what was happening to him, Will stepped back out of the aisle, away from his wife and son, carefully avoiding the faces of the other customers.

  Amy found him later at the back of the store, down on the floor near a bookcase full of old westerns.

  “Will … I’m worried. You were pretty rough on him.”
/>   Will leaned back. “So you want him to run wild in the store?”

  “I hardly think touching a few books is running wild.”

  There it was, that self-righteousness again. “You haven’t seen him in stores enough. I don’t know what it is, maybe nervous energy, but he’s always grabbing things, hitting them, rearranging them, like he has to handle everything he passes. I want to teach him that’s not appropriate behavior.”

  “Okay, but be selective. You act as if he can’t do anything right. I’m really worried.”

  “Hey …” He suddenly felt dizzy, eyes burning. “Hey, it’s our relationship. You worry about your own, okay?”

  Amy looked puzzled, and Will was afraid she’d seen through whatever had happened to him.

  But she just stared at him, then turned and stalked away.

  Will leaned back, knocking several books off into the aisle, but was unable to bend down and retrieve them. His head was pounding, circles of scarlet pressure beginning somewhere behind his eyes and expanding in repeated waves until he imagined his skull would first bulge out into his forehead, making him look like some brain-damaged maniac, then explode his head completely into fragments of bone, gray matter, and blood.

  And within the core of those expanding waves he was seeing images: himself gone berserk, gleaming knife in his hand, stabbing Mark again and again, as if he would completely sever the boy’s torso. And Mark staring at him, obviously feeling nothing, that insolent set to his lips. And Will crying, hysterical, each knife blow ripping into his own gut, and the force, the alien power thrusting through the knife-wielding arm, a power Will knew did not come from him.

  As the plane was circling the field at Will’s hometown airport, Mark fast asleep in his seat across the aisle, Amy turned to him and clutched his arm. “You’re a good father; you know that?”

  Will looked at her earnest face, and managed a brief smile for her. She often said things like that to him; he didn’t know if it was her way of encouraging him, or if she really believed it, that the troubles with Mark were small exceptions, and that Will was generally doing a good job.

  Funny how he’d always thought that being a father would be a breeze. He had to do a better job than his own father did. The old man had stayed drunk most of the time, and Will’s mental picture of him was a dirty body wrapped in oversized, smelly clothes, lying crumpled by the sofa he had failed to reach, one filmy, gray fish-eye staring at the young boy, his offspring.

  Will’s mother was the only one waiting for them in the airport, as Will had expected. The old man was probably home sleeping off a long bender that would have started when he heard he would be seeing his only son again.

  “Oh, such a big boy!” Will’s mother exclaimed, catching Mark up in her plump arms, her white hair falling over her face. Mark seemed to like the attention. He soon had one arm around his grandmother.

  Will had to admit his mother did well with the boy; she’d always been good at showing affection for little boys. Mark usually didn’t take to anyone that quickly.

  “Hi, Marie.” Amy stepped up and kissed her on the cheek.

  His mother glanced over at Will with a worried look. “Your dad hasn’t felt well the last few days. But he can hardly wait to see you; he’s been talking about little else for days.”

  “I’m sure,” he replied tightly as she came over to kiss him. She could obviously feel his disapproval as she touched his lips, and he was suddenly embarrassed. “You’re looking good, Momma. I’m glad to see you.”

  “Seven years …” she whispered into his ear.

  “You should have visited us, left him at home,” he whispered back.

  Will almost winced, seeing the great fatigue in her eyes. This bender must be a bad one. He had to admit he didn’t feel terribly sorry for her. She’d made her choices, made them over and over again to stay with the old drunk. He’d always resented the fact that that decision had condemned him as well; he didn’t know if he could ever forgive her for it.

  His mother’s eyes suddenly lifted excitedly; she reached over and pulled Mark to her side. “Look,” she cried, lifting Mark’s plump chin, stroking the boy’s thick black hair, and looking at Will. “He looks almost exactly like you did as a boy.”

  Will’s breath caught and he couldn’t reply. The pain was beginning again behind his eyes.

  The house Will grew up in was a small, two-story wooden affair in a valley just outside town. The white paint had begun to turn, and a couple of the shutters were broken. The grass had been left half-mowed, trimmed just around the front porch and walkway. The rest of the lawn had at least two months’ growth. Will looked at his mother tensely, but she seemed to be avoiding his gaze.

  The interior hadn’t changed much, the furniture the same and in the same locations he remembered from childhood. His mother brought down a box of Will’s old toys from the attic, and Mark was soon running around outside building settlements and forts. He seemed to think the unmown grass was wonderful; it made for perfect jungle terrain.

  They sat down to dinner without yet seeing the old man anywhere. No one had said anything, but half way through the meal Mark asked, “Where’s Grandad?”

  Will glanced up at the door at the top of the stairs and waited for his mother’s reply.

  “Your grandfather’s quite ill, but I’m sure he’ll be well enough to see us all tomorrow.” She looked over at Will. “He hasn’t felt well for several months.”

  With a shock, Will senses the alienness entering his arms, and stares in horror as muscles appear to rearrange themselves, hair sprouts where it has never grown, fingernails grow long and hard. He suddenly feels consumed by a rabid, hungry rage, which eats away into his intestines, demanding that he satisfy it. He leaves Amy in bed and stalks out into the hallway. His mother’s bedroom is at one end of the hall, his son Mark’s room at the other, where he used to sleep as a child. An unexpected chuckle rises to his lips, startling him. He strides rapidly down the hall, his speed both thrilling and frightening to him, and is suddenly even stronger, bolder, angrier as he passes the dark walnut door at the center of the hall, across from the staircase. He is at the boy’s door almost immediately, already imagining the breaking down, the terrified child’s screams, the pleasure of rending and tearing, slashing and smashing. But when he sees himself in the antique mirror on the wall, sees the wild hair and pale white face, bared teeth and hollow cheeks, he cannot even recognize himself.

  And eyes he knows cannot be his own—terrible gray, fish eyes, cold and animalistic, eyes watching him from the mirror, eyes grimly amused by his disheveled appearance.

  Will woke with a start, sweating profusely, and with the beginnings of a scream he could not quite release rattling around in the back of his throat. As Amy tossed and turned beside him he thought at first they were home in their own bed, but then he remembered it as one of the guest rooms of his parents’ house. His old bedroom was at the end of the hall; he thought Mark was sleeping there. They did bring Mark with them this time, didn’t they? And then at the middle of the hall, his father’s door.

  He left the bedroom quietly, deciding milk might help him sleep. He had already turned the corner to start down the stairs when he realized the door to his father’s bedroom was open.

  Out of bravery, or anger, or a lack of caution born of too little sleep, Will started through the doorway. He rubbed his hand gently across the smooth walnut surface of the door, pushing it open further.

  The bed as huge as he remembered it. The wallpaper darker. He has stumbled in his headlong flight around the bed, whimpering. He hears the drunken shouts a few feet away, but cannot bring himself to look.

  He remembered the sheets his mother bought special for his father, for a Father’s Day some twenty years past, and still the old man was using them. He wraps himself in the fallen sheets, thinking the big man won’t see him. He’s so close now, his snarling so loud, the long claws beginning to tear into the sheets.

  The bureau had clothe
s piled on top, clothes hanging out of opened drawers, clothes piled on the floor in front. He squeals as one hairy arm touches him, squirms out of the huge, gnarled hands, and runs wailing from the beast, the devil, through the piles of clothes before the bureau, to hide behind the easy chair beyond. if only he doesn’t fall!

  He could smell the stench of stale liquor everywhere. He wandered around the bed, looking at the photos on the wall, glancing nervously into the hidden shadows by the bureau, almost ready to call the man’s name, but afraid to, afraid not to. He is screaming because the beast is slashing the chair with his claws, screaming because as the creature’s massive arm rises higher and higher over the back of the chair he can see that it is a long, silvery knife in the hairy hand, screaming because as the animal climbs over the chair, exposing the wild mane of hair, the enraged red face, he can see that it is his own father trying to kill him, his father’s dark eyes with the beast’s cold gleam.

  … The eyes with the animal distance. Inhuman eyes. His father was staring at Will from the chair, his head rigid, mouth clenched, hands locked on the arms. Will gasped. Those unnatural eyes.

  “How dare you!” Let me see you, son.

  “The door was …”

  “No one comes in here!” I said come out!

  “It’s been years, Dad!” Daddy.

  “I’ll not have my privacy violated!” I’ll find you!

  “I wasn’t trying to.”

  “I’ll not stand for it, Will!” I’ll get you!

  “I only wanted to check …” Daddy, please!

  “I’ll stop you, Will!” I’ll kill you, boy!

  His father suddenly began shivering violently, his hands shaking up off the chair arms, then clasping together over his belly. Will watched in fascination as the cold, bestial gleam seemed to leave his father’s eyes, his father suddenly a confused old man, looking lost in the oversize chair.

  “Hello, Dad. You know … you scare me when you’re like that.” Why had he said that? Never before had he …