Jack Pumpkinhead help to right her, then stroked her hair. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to hurt you like that, but you just have to understand.”
Alan was next to her now. “Look, Sis, I don’t mean to go all Sleepy Hollow on you or anything, but you need to understand that...I’m sick. Just like Dad and Grampa and every other man in the Quinlan line going back for...I don’t know how long.”
Her face was throbbing and it hurt too much to move. “Wh-what’s wrong?”
“Colon cancer. It runs in the men in the family.”
“Have you seen a doctor?”
“No need to.”
“Then h-how do you know?”
“The man I killed last night came here and told me.”
Marian felt her shoulders tense.
“It’ll all make sense soon,” he said, and kissed her cheek. For some reason Marian then remembered that both Grandma, Grampa, Mom, and Dad had all died in this house, and all were buried in the Quinlan area of Cedar Hill Cemetery, along with their direct and distant ancestors.
Alan looked at the blood on his fingertips—whether it was his blood, Marian’s, or some of that from the bottle, there was no way to tell. He turned toward one of the upper cupboards and began drawing faces on them. “I know,” he said, “that there’s nothing we can do about the dying, you’re right there. But there is something we can do about the part that comes after the dying, I found that out last night.” He finished the first face— it looked a lot like Grampa’s— then started another. “I suspected for a long while that there might be ways to do it, I even tried a few— but I imagine Laura or Boots told you all about that.”
Marian offered no response. There was no need.
“Okay,” he said. “The first thing you’ve got to ask yourself is this: what kind of tapestry, quilt, whatever, are you supposed to offer up to the Divine Art Critic when you reach the great Gates? Answer: a beautiful one. Because if it’s not beautiful, that means it’s not finished.” He stopped drawing Mom’s face and leaned toward Marian. “But what happens if— regardless of how much you try to make it otherwise— your tapestry doesn’t turn out to be so beautiful? What happens when you offer it up after death and the big Somebody shakes Its omnipotent head. ‘But it’s the best I can do!’ you cry. ‘I really tried, but I just didn’t have all that much nice stuff to work with!’ What happens then? Easy; you and your tapestry are thrown out to wander around all-blessed Night.”
“I love you, Alan, but you’re not making sense.”
“Stay with me, Sis, you always were the best listener in this house.”
Marian stared. “Please let me go, Alan.”
He wasn’t listening. “Families talk about ‘the ties that bind’ a lot, you ever notice that? You know how that phrase originated? From Story-Quilt makers. I kid you not. See, there’s a method of quilting called ‘tessellation,’ which means ‘to form into or adorn with mosaic, a careful juxtaposition of elements into a final, coherent pattern.’ Since the quilt-makers had to employ endless tessellations in order to join the various patches together in order to form the story of their family, the threads they used were referred to as the ‘ties that bind.’ Don’t say I never taught you anything.
“Well, care to guess what those ‘ties’ are in our family, Sis? Love? Loyalty? Personal integrity? Think about. What is it, above all else, that ties you to your family?”
Marian looked down at her legs; they were shaking. She looked at the bloody faces on the cupboards; they were drying. She looked in her brother’s eyes; they told her nothing.
“I don’t know,” she finally said.
“Guilt,” replied Alan. “Guilt is what ties us all together, whether we admit it or not. Oh, sure, it’s easy to dismiss that idea. ‘I do it because I love you.’ ‘I do it because she’s been so good to me.’ ‘ I don’t care how sick or senile he is, I’m going to see him because I love him.’”
Alan laughed; it was breaking glass. “What a fucking bill of goods! You don’t do it because you love someone, you do it because your conscience won’t leave you alone if you don’t. It’s not so much that you love that senile, oatmeal-drooling caricature of a human being in the nursing home bed, you do it so you can clear your conscience. ‘Well, at least I came to see him. At least I did that.’ It’s all such shit. I’m not saying that love doesn’t have a small part in there, it’s just that we tend to ennoble our actions by saying they’re done out of love, when in reality they’re done because we’re scared to death of never being able to forgive ourselves if we don’t at least make the gesture!”
“God, Alan, that’s a horrible way to think.” Marian was so terrified she was on the verge tears, and the last thing she wanted to do now was give into it.
“Is it?” replied her brother. “Think about it. It’s what drove Grampa to us, isn’t it? His last-ditch attempt to clear the slate, to beautify his tapestry. There’s so much that gets buried under the weight of compiling years, so many memories that can find a dark, dusty little corner to hide in, so much unresolved guilt that builds up unnoticed that we can never be sure if we have really made our tapestries whole, beautiful, acceptable, cha-cha-cha. What if Mom, Dad, Grandma, Grampa, all of them, what if when they got to wherever it is we go they pulled out their tapestries and— voila!— right smack in the middle of it was all this shit they’d forgotten about, all these disfiguring little unremembered guilts that crept into to the artwork, huh? Easy—they get banished to ever-blessed Night. But what if there was a way to fix those tapestries? What if there was a way to remove the ugliness from them? They’d have to be accepted then, wouldn’t they? Wouldn’t they?” He was almost right in her face now, and Marian, for the first time she could remember, was very much in fear of her brother.
“G-Given what you’ve s-s-said,” she whispered, “I s-s-suppose they would almost h-have to be. Yes.”
Alan’s body suddenly released all its tension. His eyes grew less intense, his shaking stopped, and he smiled his crooked grin. “Good,” he said, taking her hand. His touch was almost too gentle, and Marian noticed with a numb horror that the moist blood squishing between the flesh of their hands was not...was not at all that unpleasant.
She closed her eyes and swallowed.
“Marian?”
“Yes?”
“I’m going to tell you how we can do it. I’m going to tell you how we can make their tapestries beautiful once again.”
“...all right.”
He leaned over and kissed her cheek. She stared at the faces he’d sketched on the wall, wondering why none of them were dripping because his blood was so fresh.
“Last night, around six or six-thirty— I wasn’t paying that much attention— I was sitting in the front room, just...just sitting, I guess. I kept thinking about all that had gone wrong between Laura and me, and try as I did I couldn’t find the reason for us breaking up like we did.
“You have to understand that the nights were terrible for me, have been for the last eight months since she left, and I...I can’t stand sleeping alone. The fact that everything in our house had her smell on it didn’t help matters any. The chairs, the curtains, our bed— God, especially our bed! She took everything with her when she left, except her smell. It’s the sweetest smell I ever knew. Everything about her was the sweetest I’d ever known.
“Anyhoo, I started going through the closet one day and I found her old black robe and a bra and panty set she’d left behind. They were covered with her scent. It was incredible. I’d hold them next to me and lie on the bed and just...just breathe it in.
“It was so overpowering that I could almost feel her there with me. So I tried laying all the things out like she’d be wearing them if she were still there, and I’d lay there and close my eyes and smell here, so near, so full and ready, and I could sense her body, every part of her body, there in the bed next to me. So one night I didn’t open my eyes, I let her scent carry me as far as it could, and when I reached ou
t to touch her I could feel her skin, and it was so warm, so near, so ready...it was like we’d never been apart. I made love to her that night like I’d never done it before.
“Afterward, I closed my eyes and let the scent cover me. And then I sensed him in the room with me. I looked up and he was just standing there, shaking his head at me.”
Marian shuddered. “Wh-who?”
“He said his name was Joseph-Something-or-Other, I don’t quite remember.”
Marian swallowed. Once. Very loudly. “Comstock?”
“What?”
“Comstock. Was his last name ‘Comstock’?”
“How’d you know that?” Alan didn’t wait for an answer. “So Joseph says to me, ‘You should turn the gas off.’ So I did. I even opened all the doors and windows so nothing would go wrong. Then he told me what he’d come for, and asked me if I’d lead him to where he needed to go.
“I led him to the spot in the front room, under that hanging of The Last Supper, the spot where Grampa died. He stood there a long time, like he was searching for something, then he turned around and said there’d been a lot Grampa had forgotten about.
“I took him upstairs next, to the guest room where Grandma died. The first thing he did was ask me how she died, and I told him about how Grandma moved in with us after Grampa’s funeral because she felt so bad about things, and I told him about how I’d bring her an orange soda every night so she could read and take her pills, then about that last night when I brought her the soda and she hugged me so hard and kissed me and told me I didn’t have to sit with her if I didn’t want to, she’d understand. I told him about how I left her and how, the next morning, we found her dead because she’d taken all her pills. He just nodded at me and then sat on the bed and then found the things she’d forgotten about, as well. Then I brought him down here and he went right to the spot Dad died—I didn’t even have to show him where. He stumbled a little bit because of all the guilt and regret Dad had inside him when he died.
“The hardest part was finding Mom. I knew she had her stroke at the market and that she DOA at the hospital, but the hard part was going to be finding the exact spot where she died. We wandered through the store for a while— they’re open all night now, isn’t that nice?— until we hit the ‘Miscellaneous’ aisle. She’d gone into that aisle to get some more thread to use on her story quilt because she was almost finished with it. Joseph turned around and told me it started there, the first waves of dizziness and pain and breathing problems.
“Mom always checked-out through lane 7 because it was closest to the payphone so she could call a cab. And she had to call a cab— I’m sure we all know— because all my life I’ve been too chickenshit to drive. If I did drive then maybe—
“—but that’s nothing. We walked outside and he found the spot where it really hit her.
“Then he looked at me.
“Took three steps.
“And found her.
“Those fuckers at the hospital lied to us when they said she died on the way! She was dead before they even got there. He even told me what it was she whispered to some woman who was near.
“She was worried that no one would remember to feed the dog, Midnight. Our dog that’s been dead for six goddamn years!
“By then Joseph had everything that he came for, so we went back to the house and down to the basement. He found Dad’s old tool box and took out the hammer.
“‘It’s the only way you can find out,’” he said to me. I knew he was right. I took the hammer from him and turned it around so the claw was facing out. He turned and knelt down in front of me like he was praying. I put my free hand on the back of his head to steady myself because I was so scared, but he said, ‘Don’t be afraid,’ and I wasn’t. It was all there waiting for me, all the ugly little guilts that had found their way into the tapestries.
“I took a breath, pulled back with the hammer, started crying, and swung down at the back of his skull. I remember thinking his head made an interesting sound when it split open. You know the sound a watermelon makes after you cut it down the center and then pry the halves apart? It’s not really a pop or a crunch, but something wet in between the two? That’s what it sounded like when I opened his skull. Then I had to put the hammer down and pry the halves apart with my hands.
“God, it was a mess, but it was worth it. They all spread out before me; all their tapestries with all that unremembered, disfiguring guilt. And I fixed them, Marian, I did it. I wallowed in the ugliness, then took it away, removed it from all of their tapestries until all that was left were the whole, finished, beautiful tessellations of love and memory and happiness. And the things I found out! Did you know Mom once had an affair she never told anyone about? It was with some old friend from her days in the Childrens’ Home. It lasted three weeks and then the guy moved away. Afterward she had these little fantasies about him, which is why she and Dad seemed to have such a new marriage after their twenty-fifth anniversary. Dad never suspected, and wherever he is now, he’ll never know because I’ve got that memory, that guilt, right up here in my mind and in my heart. It’s part of my tapestry now and can’t touch them where they are.
“Oh, and Dad. You know why he always had a problem with his mother? Bitch used to beat him with her shoes when he was a little boy. High heeled shoes. Just take them off and pound at his back until it looked like Swiss cheese. Poor Aunt Boots used to stick him back together afterward and then they’d hug each other and hide in their room, scared to death she’d bust in with a ball bat and kill them both. And everyone wondered why he didn’t cry at her funeral. But the thing is, he never blamed her— he always felt guilty because he was such a bad boy and got his mother mad enough to do that to him! Well, he doesn’t have that anymore, I’ve got it! And I hope his mother is burning in Hell right now, I really do.
“I can’t tell you what it felt like, taking it away like that. It feels awful now— the worst thing I’ve ever felt— but at that moment, up to my eyes in it, it was the greatest sensation I’ve ever known. But when it was over, Joseph’s body flopped over onto its back and spoke to me. The two halves of his face kind of squirmed like worms, but I could understand him just fine, and he told me about you, about how it had to be like this. Then he fell back down and stopped moving.
“I wanted to call someone and tell them all about, how miraculous the whole thing was, but I knew if I called Aunt Boots or Laura they’d have the Twinkie Mobile over here in no time flat, so I did the next best thing; ;I walked over to the Western Union office and sent you a telegram. I knew where your show was so it was easy. It was always great of you to send us your schedule, really it was.
“And here you are. It’s great to see you, Marian. I knew this would just bring us closer together. I just knew it.”
Marian stared the man standing across from her. Closer together? She’d never felt so distanced from anyone or anything in her life. Or afraid. So afraid.
“So,” Alan said in calm, conversational tone. “How’s the show going?”
Marian blinked. Small talk? How-are-you?-chit-chat? Now? Hey, Sis, there’s a mangled body in the basement and by the way how are things with your career?
“Okay,” said Alan, “since you don’t feel like playing catch-up, what say you go find out for yourself.” He nodded at Jack, who began moving Marian toward the basement door.
“Turn on the light, and go down there. What do you say, Sis? If you really want to know if I’ve gone the Permanent Bye-Bye, that’s all you have to do.”
There was no threat in his eyes.
“I love you, Alan.”
“You keep saying that. Look, no one’s going to hurt you, I swear. You’ll walk out that front door as alive as you came in. I’d never let anything happen to you. Never.”
By now they were in front of the basement door. Alan opened it and Jack eased Marian forward. She took a deep breath and turned on the light.
“Want me to come with you?” said Alan.
&nbs
p; Marian swallowed. Her mouth tasted of bile and fear.
“If you’d like.” Strange, that even now he wanted to look after her, take care of her.
He put a warm and reassuring hand on her shoulder. “Don’t be afraid. I’m not. Not anymore.”
She looked at him and wondered why in the hell she hadn’t gone over to Aunt Boots’s house first.
Then she tried to smile.
And they started down the steps.
Marian was only aware of time passing. She held her breath as she descended the stairs, trying to keep herself from shaking. She became aware of all the underneath-sounds you never hear during the day because you’re too busy to notice them; the faint, irregular drip of water as condensation fell from the pipes, her own breathing, the creak of a house still settling. She wet her lips, then squeezed the wooden railing for reassurance. No good; she was still petrified.
The stairs groaned and rasped with her every step; it would not have surprised her had the damn things simply splintered in half and sent her falling straight down, Alice in the Rabbit’s Hole.
Then came a sound from somewhere behind him.
A soft sound.
But close.
“Doing fine,” said Jack.
The doorbell rang upstairs. Alan grabbed Marian’s shoulder, halting her, then turned to Jack and said, “You’d better stay up there and take care of the beggars. Make sure you tell all of them about tonight.”
Wordlessly, Jack did as he was told.
Every muscle in Marian’s body seemed to knot up all at once; her skin broke out in gooseflesh and her breath suddenly caught in her throat. She briefly flashed on an incident from her childhood when Dad had bagged a deer while hunting and split it open from its neck down to its hind legs, then hung it upside-down in the basement to drain. She hadn't know it was there when she went down to get something for Mom, and it was dark and she didn't want to go because the light switch wasn’t working and that meant she had to go down the stairs and then walk all the way over on the other wall, which meant going across the basement in order to turn it on, which always seemed like a twenty-mile hike through the darkest woods to her, but she managed to get to the bottom of the stairs and took a deep breath and start hiking through the forest, then slipped in a puddle of something and fell on her stomach. She yelled because she was having trouble getting up, so Mom came down and walked over and turned on the light and there
Cages & Those Who Hold the Keys Page 38