The Dark Fantastic

by Stanley Ellin

  When they drew apart Milano motioned at the door. “Trouble in paradise?”

  “Oh, man,” Chris sighed. “You know, Nardo gave that reading of Pearl’s new play for some of us last night. Today Pearl got the word nobody much liked it, so she’s dumping on Nardo. She told him it was his lousy reading that spoiled it. Now they both want me to be referee.”

  “And how would you call it?”

  “Well, it’s got a great part for me,” said Christine Bailey, true actress. “Never mind that.” She led Milano to the stairway. Seating herself on the top step, she drew him down beside her. “I’m glad you’re here. I phoned you a couple of times.”

  “I was on the job,” Milano said. “How’s little sister?”

  “The same. This morning Mama raised a fuss over at social services about someone there coming to the house and seeing the kid, so they finally arranged it for tomorrow evening. No therapist. Just someone to see if she needs a therapist. I’ll be going there after work.”

  “Company welcome?”

  “Yours is, I guess. You can put Mania down on that list of old ladies who have a thing going for you.”

  Old, thought Milano. Mama could be fifty. She was probably closer to forty-five, which was just a tomorrow away from his forty.

  He put an arm around Chris and she rested her head on his shoulder. From behind the door, playwright and director continued their unmelodious duet. Someone in another apartment on the floor was practising the guitar, winging it on broken pinions. A well-dressed middle-aged Caucasian quartet – two bouncy females, two professorial-looking males – appeared at the foot of the staircase, and Milano stood up to make room for them as they single-filed past, all bouncy chatter cut off until they were on their way up the next flight. Milano resumed his position, and Chris resumed hers.

  After awhile he said, “You know, this stair-sitting deal is really ridiculous.”

  “Not from where I am.”

  “From where we both are. So how about getting your things together and coming along home before they even notice you’re gone?”

  “Your home.”

  “I’d say ours. Nice cozy place too.”

  “Maybe.” She moved apart from him but tucked her arm through his. “Except when I wait for the elevator and wonder if your penthouse friend is coming down on it. Or the doorbell rings, and I wonder who else from the chorus line is coming to claim her wandering boy.”

  Milano felt his frustration count rising. “I thought we cleared all that up.”

  “Not all. Some.” She sounded troubled. “Anyhow, that is not my part of town, Johnny.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “What it sounded like. I like it down here. My friends are here. Whatever I want is here. And I am very low profile here.”

  “You couldn’t be low profile wherever the hell you are.”

  “Oh yes I can. Right here, when I want to be.”

  He reviewed the case so far, then said, “All right, I’m not tied to that apartment. I can get my price for it any time. And there’s some high-rises in the Village here that look very nice at least from the outside. Or one of those brownstones they’re doctoring up. How about that?”

  “No! And don’t talk like that. Man, can’t you see how you’re putting me down with that line of talk?”

  “No, I can’t.”

  “Well, you are. I made it on my own up to now. Schools, jobs, acting, whatever came along I handled it all on my own. Now here comes the magic man. Steak dinner, car, brownstone – just make a wish and it comes true. But I do not want anyone dealing me whatever cards I call. Can you understand that much?”

  “What I understand, baby, is that you are considerably coloring it in the telling.”

  “I’m giving it to you straight, Johnny. Like, you have me jumpy any time you mention something about the show being closed. I can just see you going behind my back to open it again. Buy a theater if you have to. Buy a whole supporting cast for me from Grace MacFadden’s dear friends. And that is not my style.”

  “In some circles,” Milano said coldly, “all that would be seen as a demonstration of affection.”

  “True,” Christine said. “And what kind of demonstration can I pay back with? You work that out, and maybe you’ll begin to get the idea.”

  “And then again,” Milano said, “maybe not,” but when he rose to his feet Christine pulled him down hard.

  “Oh no,” she said. “You do not just walk out any time the talk doesn’t go your way. Not right now for sure. Because I will shove you down this whole flight of stairs and then come to the hospital and talk you to death.”

  Milano laughed.

  “I’m not putting you on,” Chris warned, “because neither of us is ever going to blow this thing out of just plain foolishness.”

  “My foolishness.”

  “Could be mine now and then. So we make a rule. Any time the foolishness gets heavy we stop right there and talk about something else. Anything else. Just pick it out of the hat. All right?”

  “All right. So this seems like the time to tell you that the case of Mrs. Smith is all washed up. Finished.”

  “The lady with the Boudins? Just like that?”

  “Yes. Seems she got her paintings back again her own way. What I’d like you to do now is forget all about it. Especially around Rammaert. Never to mention anything to him about it. Or about me. Could hurt in a business way if you do.”

  “Wouldn’t help me much either, would it?” Chris observed.

  “I guess not.” He moved his arm around her shoulders and drew her close. His hand cupped the softness of a breast, the hardness of a nipple. Prom night. Only this time his date happened to be, however frustratingly, in pajamas and barefoot.

  Barefoot.

  “Aren’t your feet cold?” he asked.

  “Believe me, honey,” his date assured him, “nothing is cold right now.”

  Charles Witter Kirwan

  THIS IS MY FINAL MESSAGE.

  My last statement.

  Sacred in a way. Last statements – deathbed statements – have always been regarded as sacred to some degree. God in his infinite wilfulness lighting up the soul of the dying at their last breath. But there will be no more truth or exposure of the naked soul in what I say now than there has been in anything I have already said to you. All was the truth.

  My final message? Yes. But this is Wednesday, and the grand event was scheduled for Thursday. Tomorrow.

  Now there has been a change of schedule.

  An enforced change of schedule.

  The grand event will take place at seven o’clock this evening.

  Instead of being my day of rest after yesterday’s exhausting effort, this must be a day of final hard labor. And fulfillment.

  Yesterday I placed the charge on the second-floor level of the shaft. The penultimate charge.

  Today the ultimate charge. At five o’clock this afternoon. Two hours allowed, so at seven I can sound the Bulanga crack of doom.

  No one will be allowed to interfere.

  No one.

  It is now

  It is now precisely twenty minutes after seven this final morning. Less than twelve hours left. Too little, because I desperately need sleep to ease this exhaustion. A long sleep, not the scraps I get. Exhaustion from physical effort, yes. But from the pain too. The pain is not only the knife thrust into the body, it is now a crushing weight on the shoulders. You bow under it. There is no way of straightening up under it.

  But not for long.

  A change of schedule at all costs.

  Why?

  Ask my would-be nemesis. My personal demon.

  Who for the sake of

  For the money value of seventy-two sticks of dynamite, a length of fuse, and a cheap detonator would confound all plans.

  His recovery of a few dollars worth of stolen property his meaning, his gratification, his madness.

  Madness?

  It must be. Prowling outside all night
. No time to waste on sleep, food, pissing, shitting, dandifying himself. Is any avid hunter closing in on his game burdened with such small concerns?

  A madman. But cunning.

  I have my own cunning. Oh yes. I scent his presence. Catch glimpses of him peripherally from different windows of the house. Just glimpses before he slips out of sight again.

  At three o’clock this morning I sensed him acutely. Knew, as if it were written in fiery letters on this wall, that he was attempting to get into the cellar next door. Testing the locks in the shadows of the courtyard. Skeleton keys, a wire, a blade. Testing.

  Sick with panic, pouring cold sweat, I found the strength to get up, to go out, to make my way to the courtyard. Too late. Gone already. And whatever he tried to do to those locks left no marks.

  But he will be back tonight in the first darkness. And tomorrow night. The worst possible time for me. Tomorrow night.

  This must not happen.

  Cannot be allowed to happen.

  So

  The grand event is now scheduled for tonight. His opportunities for mischief are cut in half.

  For the rest, I know how to attend to him.

  I will attend to him.

  Now what else is

  Notes. I had my notes here.

  Yes.

  That property designated in the plat book as Number 409, Witter Street.

  That property afterward. After the grand event.

  This is important.

  In the documents covering the administration of the Hendrick Witter Fund there is an omission. I am attending to it herewith. That property, once cleared of its rubble, must be restored to what it had been, a lawn and orchard adjacent to this house..

  Not too difficult.

  Wait.

  I have placed on my desk two photograph albums dating before the year 1922. Many of these photographs in it were taken on that property before it was built over. By using this house as location marker when you study these pictures, it should be easy to determine the kind of trees – most of them – and their location in their original setting. Especially the twin row of cherry trees.

  Not difficult. And the expense does not matter. The funding will be there. The restoration must be as accurate as possible.

  Accurate.

  My grandfather’s favorite words. Accurate. Exact. Precise.

  A comical event. I stood in kneepants under those cherry trees and told my grandfather with excitement a story – a historical event learned in school.

  The trees sticky with sap, my hand sticky and blackened by it. And my grandfather saying, “George Washington never cut down a cherry tree. He was not a fool. But Parson Weems who made up that story was a liar and a fool. What can you expect from a man named Weems?”

  A sense of humor? In his way, yes. And the one to go to when gospel had to be confirmed. Or denied.

  A man closed to the world. Open to me. It was on that day I understood this.

  I understood it, child that I was.

  Oh yes.

  What does a child know? He knows more than anyone thinks he does. The silent child.

  I knew my stepfather drank.

  I saw the bottles, I smelled his reeking breath, and from between the banister posts at the head of the staircase I observed him as the naturalist in deep cover observes the wild life around him.

  I knew my stepfather and my mother did something interesting and exciting in bed late at night. The bathroom faced their room across the hallway. I lingered in the bathroom, door open a little, and was excited by the sounds from that room of the bed creaking rhythmically, of the people in the bed groaning and gasping. No dismay in me, no outrage, just the itch of curiosity.

  No trauma, believe me, dear Fraudians, because I was not Prince Hamlet nor was meant to be. Just a nice little boy savoring the mysteries being suggested.

  What does a child know? Like a cat in an electric storm he knows when tensions rise. Tensions rose a little, fell a little all along. But they rose high and never fell when those blueprints appeared. Blueprints. Rolls of them. And talk of building and investment and money. Not angry talk. Nagging talk. Insistent talk. My grandfather always restrained, Dapper Dan always jovial, always nagging, always insistent. But the electricity was there. Oh yes. Get too close and feel the shock.

  I got too close. I felt the shock.

  Not a bad man, Daniel Kirwan. Not evil.

  I must do him justice.

  Not evil at all.

  How can I put it?

  Hell must be paved with his good intentions.

  Awed by my grandfather. His quality. His breeding, his manners,

  Incredulous. “You really did read all these books, Hendrick?”

  Awed by Hendrick’s letters published in the newspapers. The Times. The Tribune. The Morning World. The Sun. The

  The

  No one knew it till after his death – my grandfather didn’t know it – but Dapper Dan collected tearsheets of those printed letters and kept them locked away in his closet.

  I came home on emergency leave from Camp Gordon for the funeral, and I was the one who found them there in the closet. A manila envelope packed with them. That envelope. Along with the dozens of pint bottles of whiskey. And the hunting guns in their leather cases. Two rifles, a shotgun. And the steel boxes of ammunition, enough to fight a battle.

  His private, carefully locked closet.

  Out of his depth, poor benighted soul. So money money money became his lifeline. Reckless building, reckless investment.

  He would have been the first to take out that shotgun and aim it at the invading Bulanga. Never knew he was their ally, their Fifth Column. Take the cash today, never mind the disaster you’re planning for tomorrow in your ignorance.

  What does a child know?

  I sensed all this when I was a child. Sensed the electricity generated when the ancients trying to hold the world together are confronted by the upstarts driven to smash it apart.

  Oh yes.

  That day

  That day in this room. The door closed but the voices heard through it. Hendrick Witter and Dapper Dan Kirwan. That jovial bullying voice. “You can’t keep stalling, Hendrick. Now is the time.”

  My grandfather: “I’m sorry, Daniel. I don’t like it. No one on the block likes it.”

  “The hell with them. If they had the brains, they would have been the first ones to line up a deal like this.”

  “I’m sorry, Daniel.”

  “Sorry? That’s all you can say? After what’s gone into these plans? That’s what you think of my judgment?”

  “My judgment is that you don’t know the elements you’re inviting here when you put up an apartment building like that.”

  “Oh yes I do, Hendrick. People with rent money. They pay it and we collect it.”

  “Yes. Well, let someone else collect it, Daniel.”

  “No. And I’ll tell you this, Hendrick. If you don’t respect my judgment in this, you don’t respect me. If that’s how it is, I’m taking my wife and son and moving out. Get that into your head. We move out, and I handle my business on my own. You can sit here and enjoy life by yourself, Hendrick.”

  No answer? Yes. Finally.

  “You know I won’t permit any such nonsense, Daniel. My grandson deserves a little better than what you could offer him on your own. His mother chose you, God help her. He is not going to pay for her mistake.”

  “Your grandson? Your grandson? My son, Hendrick. Try and get that into your head. My son.”

  Electricity. Ten thousand volts of it in the air. Then my grandfather: “Is that why you insist on a legal adoption, Daniel? To use the child against me?”

  “God damn it, don’t ever say that, Hendrick. Don’t ever say that again. And when we’re gone – my wife and my son and me, Hendrick – don’t ever come crawling and think you can apologize for it.”

  “Daniel.”

  “The hell with you.”

  “Daniel, listen to me. I’m apologi
zing now.”

  So

  That’s how the world ends. Not with a bang or a whimper. With an abject apology.

  What does a child know?

  He knows when he’s being held hostage by a pitiful, frightened, worthless, drunken soul.

  He doesn’t mind.

  Life goes on and grandfather is still there.

  Evil will never end the world. Stupidity will.

  And stupidity with its

  Yes.

  Stupidity with its built-in self-destruct rejoices each time it has its way.

  Celebrates.

  Are you listening closely?

  Gaudily, extravagantly celebrates.

  A block party. That evening one week after my tenth birthday. One week after the State of New York decreed I was no longer Charles Witter but Charles Kirwan.

  The celebration of 409 Witter Street. Unoccupied yet, but gloriously complete, its canvas marquee handsomely inscribed with its address. A huge, shining wonder. I admired it, gloried in it, put on airs for my friends who did not have any such behemoth in their yards to show the world.

  Barricades placed at both ends of the block by the kindly police, and the space between filling with neighbors, acquaintances, workers from the construction job, people from as far away as the outlands blocks distant from us. Japanese lanterns festooned on tree branches, wound around lamp posts. Tables – those long planks on sawhorses – offering endless food and drink. On a low platform in the middle of the roadway a brass band. Six pieces. Red and green and orange lights from the lanterns flickering on the brass instruments, melting together in puddles of color on them.

  And bright-colored balloons floating and popping everywhere. It didn’t matter if you broke one. Take another. Take a dozen.

  Pop pop pop

  Take another dozen. And another.

  Did the Bulanga around their distant campfires – the fires lighting their stinking garbage heaps – did they hear that faraway popping of balloons and know that some day

  Some day

  After the Irish and the Italians and the Jews

  That some day

  Yes.