"Well, I believe it and so do you, so between us, we half a wacko each."
"And you been keeping secrets like this your whole life?"
"Nothing like this. I only found this place yesterday."
"And there was a man in the house."
"I call him Mr. Christmas." For right now, Mack wasn't interested in bringing Puck's real name into the conversation. He had a feeling that might make things too strange for Ceese.
"Cause he looks like Santa Claus?"
"Well, then, the name 'Mr. Christmas' make perfect sense. I always think of Bob Marley at Christmastime."
"I wish I knew where he was," said Mack. "He could explain things to you a lot better than me.
Except that he lies all the time."
"All the time?"
"No. He tells the truth just enough to keep you from knowing what's what."
"Well, then, I can't wait to meet him. I don't have half enough liars in my life."
"Come on out into the woods with me. Just a little way," said Mack.
"Why?"
"For one thing, so you can see that I'm not making it up."
"I really do believe you now, Mack. I really do."
"You scared of the woods?"
"I'm scared of that panther. He likes you fine, but I don't want to test to see if my pistol can kill a magic cat. Besides, a cop shooting a Black Panther is such a stereotype."
"Ha ha," said Mack. "It ain't that kind of panther, and you no kind of cop at all, yet."
"I don't even have a gun yet," said Ceese.
"Then why you worried about whether you can shoot a panther?"
"Thinking ahead."
Mack took him by the hand and dragged him to the edge of the patio. But the cement didn't turn to brick under their feet, and when they stepped off into the grass they squished rotting oranges, which was fine for Ceese, wearing shoes as he was, but pretty icky for Mack, whose feet were bare.
"I guess I don't have permission to enter Fairyland," said Ceese.
"Then why were you able to get into the house?"
"Maybe halfway is as far as I can go."
"No, let's try getting you in sideways."
They tried crossing the patio with Ceese's eyes closed, and with Ceese walking backward, but there was no woods and no brick path and finally it occurred to Mack that maybe the problem wasn't Ceese.
Where Puck had turned small and slender and green-clad, Ceese had changed in an entirely different way. It was as if the house had shrunk behind him. Ceese was at least twice as tall as the house, and he looked massively strong, with hands that could crush boulders.
Now I know where all those stories about giants come from, thought Mack. Giants are just regular people, when they come into Fairyland.
Except Ceese can't get in. And what about me? I'm regular people, and I'm just the same size I always am.
"Mack!"
The voice was faint and small, and for a moment Mack thought it was Ceese calling him. But no, Ceese was looking off in another direction and anyway, a man that big couldn't possibly make a sound that thin and high.
Mack looked around him there in the woods, and finally found what he was looking for. Down among the fallen leaves, the grass, the moss, the mushrooms, with butterflies soaring overhead, was Puck. Not the big man with the rasta do, but the slender green-clad fairy he had glimpsed last evening on the porch of Skinny House.
He looked dead. Though he must have been alive a moment ago to call to him. Maybe it took the last of his strength. Maybe his last breath.
Puck was bloody, and his wings were torn. His chest looked crushed. One leg was bent at a terrible angle where there wasn't supposed to be a knee.
Mack gently scooped him up and started carrying him toward the house.
Trouble was, Puck grew larger in his hands. Heavier. More like his human Rastafarian self. Too big for Mack to carry safely.
At first he tried to carry him over his shoulder, but that worked for only a few steps before Mack collapsed under the weight of him. Then he got his hands under the man's armpits and dragged him. But it was hard work. His shoes kept snagging on stones and roots. Mack's heart was beating so fast he could hear it pounding in his ears. He had to stop and rest. And in the meantime, he knew Puck was still bleeding and probably dying even deader with every jostle and every minute of delay.
If only Ceese could enter the forest of Fairyland, he could pick Puck up like a baby and carry him.
And then it dawned on Mack why it was Ceese couldn't get in.
"What?"
"Mr. Christmas is in there, hurt bad, and I can't drag him out."
"Well I can't get in."
"I think maybe the reason you can't is that the passageway into Fairyland isn't tall enough for you."
"I'm not all that tall," said Ceese.
"In Fairyland you are. I saw you from inside the woods, and you're a giant, Ceese."
Ceese laughed at that—he wasn't all that tall a man, just average—but soon he was doing as Mack suggested, crawling on hands and knees while holding on to Mack's ankle and looking off to the side, and whether all of that was needed or it was just the crawling, he made it onto the brick path—which was no pleasure, on his knees like that—and then onto the mossy path.
"Open your eyes," said Mack.
Ceese did, and he truly was a giant, looking down at Mack like he was a Cabbage Patch doll.
And there, two strides away, was a grown black man in a rasta do, just like Mack described him.
"How come I'm a full-grown giant and he's not a tiny fairy, this far into the woods?"
"How do you know you're full-grown?" asked Mack.
He didn't, and he wasn't. In the two strides it took him to reach Mr. Christmas, Ceese grew so tall that his head was in the branches of the trees and he had to kneel back down just to see the path.
He scooped up Mr. Christmas just the way Mack had done and then, a few steps later, he had shrunk enough he had to set him down again and carry him in a fireman's carry. By the time they got to the back door, with Mack holding the screen open so Ceese could get inside, the man was so heavy and huge that Ceese was panting and staggering.
But he remembered how it felt to be so huge, and he kind of liked it.
Now the house was full of furniture again. Ceese took this in stride and laid Mr. Christmas out on the sofa. Now he was able to check his vital signs. "He's got a pulse. I don't suppose there's a phone."
"I wouldn't count on it," said Mack.
"Let's get him outside then, out to the street where somebody can see us, and try to get him to a hospital."
"I was hoping his own magic could heal him."
Mack helped Ceese get him up onto his back again, the old man's arms dangling over Ceese's shoulders. "Get the door open, Mack, and then run out into the street and flag somebody down."
Mack obeyed. First car that came was a nice big one, driven by Professor Williams from up the hill. He pulled right over when Mack flagged him.
"We got a man needs to get to the hospital!"
"I'm not that kind of a doctor," said Professor Williams. "I'm a doctor of literature."
"You the driver of a big car," said Mack, "and you can get this man to the hospital."
By now, Ceese had staggered to the curb, so he was visible.
"That man looks hurt," said Professor Williams.
"That be my guess, too," said Mack.
"He'll bleed all over my upholstery."
"That going to stop you from helping a man in need?" asked Mack.
Professor Williams was embarrassed. "No, of course not." A moment later, he had the back door open and then helped Ceese get the man into the car without dropping him or banging his head against the door or the car roof. It wasn't easy.
And at the end, when Mr. Christmas was laid out on the seat, Professor Williams took a good long look at his face. "Bag Man," he whispered.
"You know this guy?" said Ceese.
Professor Wi
lliams handed his keys to Ceese. "You take my car to the hospital. I'll walk back home and get my son Word to drive me to work."
"You sure you trust me with a car this nice?" said Ceese.
Professor Williams looked from Mr. Christmas to Mack and then back to Ceese. "I'm never riding in a car with that man again," he said. "If you're determined to save his life, then go, I won't stop you."
"I just hope I can get to the hospital in time. Unless you got a siren in your car."
Professor Williams gave a bitter little laugh. "I have a feeling you'll have green lights all the way, son."
Mr. Christmas didn't wake up at all, not on the way to the hospital, and not when the orderlies came out and hauled him out of the car and laid him on a gurney and rolled him into the emergency room.
That caused some raised eyebrows, and when they signed Mr. Christmas in as a John Doe, Ceese turned to Mack and said, "You watch, they'll have a cop coming by here to ask us if we the ones who beat this man up."
"Why would they do that?"
"Take a look at the color of your skin."
Mack grinned. "This just a suntan, Ceese. You know I spend all day outdoors in the summer."
"What I'm saying, Mack, is, let's go home. Let's not be here when the cop shows up."
"I can't do that," said Mack.
Ceese shook his head. "What is this man to you?"
"He's the man in Skinny House," said Mack. "He's the man who led me into—"
"Don't say it."
"Don't say what?"
Ceese lowered his voice. "Fairyland. Makes you sound two years old."
"He's more than two years old, that's what he called it."
"So don't you wonder how he got so beat up?"
"It could have been anything, he was so small."
"How small was he?" asked Ceese.
"You know how small he was in your hands when you picked him up?"
"Yeah, but that's because I was..." Ceese looked around at the other people in the emergency waiting area. "Well, I was what I was right then."
"That's how big he was to me, and I was normal size."
Ceese turned himself on the couch and leaned close to Mack's ear. "That's something I want to know. I got big, and that old bum got small, but nothing happened to you at all."
"So, why?"
"I didn't read the instruction manual, I guess."
"I'm just trying to think it out and make some sense out of it."
"It don't make sense, Ceese."
"I mean, if humans turn into giants, and... whatever he is... gets small, what are you?"
"I wish I knew," said Mack. "I never met my mother. Maybe she was regular size, too."
Ceese looked away, then turned to face front. "I wasn't saying about your parentage. Don't get sensitive on me all of a sudden."
"I'm not," said Mack. "I just don't know. I could be anything. I mean, if a regular-looking homeless person with a rasta do can be a fairy."
A new voice came out of nowhere. "Is that why you boys beat him up? Cause you thought he was gay?"
It was a cop standing ten feet away, so his voice carried through the whole room. Mack had never been rousted by a cop, though he'd heard plenty of tales and he knew the rules—always say sir and answer polite and don't ever, ever get mad, no matter what stupid thing they say. Did it make a difference that this cop was black?
"We didn't beat him up, sir," said Ceese. "And we were honestly not referring to anyone's sexual orientation, sir."
"Oh, so you were telling fairy stories to your little friend here?"
Mack didn't think he was so little anymore. Then he realized the cop was being sarcastic.
"As it happens, sir, I used to tend this boy when he was little. I was his daycare while his mother, who is a nurse in this very hospital, worked the evening shift. So I've read him a lot of fairy tales in my time."
The cop squinted, not sure if he was being had. "I've heard a lot of fairy tales, too."
"Not from me, sir."
"So you really did just find that unconscious man by the side of the road," said the cop, "and you happened to flag down the only man in the universe who would hand you his car keys and let you drive his fancy car to the hospital with a dirty bleeding old bum with a broken leg and five broken ribs and all kinds of contusions and abrasions bleeding all over the nice leather interior."
"Except," said Mack.
Ceese turned to him, looking as casual and politely interested as could be, but Mack knew his look really meant, Don't touch my story, boy, it's the best one we got.
"He wasn't unconscious when we found him," said Mack. "When I found him, I guess I mean. I heard him. Calling out for help. That's why we found him in the bushes and we dragged him to the street and that's how we knew we couldn't carry him, and maybe we caused him more pain because he was unconscious after that. But we didn't know what else to do."
"Could have called 911," said the cop, "and not moved him."
"We didn't know how bad hurt he was at first," said Ceese. "We thought maybe he was just drunk on the lawn."
"Where was this?" asked the cop, and from then on he was all business, taking notes, and then taking their names and addresses. When it was all done, and he was about to leave, he said, "You know why I believe your story?"
"Why?" asked Mack sincerely, since he didn't think he'd believe it himself.
"Because you'd have to be six kinds of stupid to make that shit up. Cause it's going to be so easy to check. First call is to this Professor Williams."
"We don't know his number at Pepperdine, sir," said Ceese.
"I'm a policeman, a highly trained professional. I am going to use that subtle instrument of detection, directory assistance, and find out the number at Pepperdine, and then I'm going to ask the nice lady who answers the telephone to connect me with Professor Williams. Meanwhile, I think I'll hold on to these car keys, since they might be evidence if things turn out wrong."
"So you don't believe us," said Ceese.
"I mostly believe you," said the policeman.
"If you take the keys, how will we get home?"
The cop laughed.
Ceese explained. "If he doesn't get the right answer from Professor Williams, then we won't be going home."
The cop winked and they followed him out into the corridor, where he pulled out a cellphone and called directory assistance and then talked to the Pepperdine switchboard and then must have got voicemail because he left a message asking Professor Williams to call him about a matter concerning his Mercedes automobile and then he said the license plate number.
"Of course not," said Ceese. "He's a professor. He's in class, not in his office."
"But where does that leave me?"
"Well, you could ask Miz Smitcher," said Mack.
"Who's that?" asked the cop.
"His mother," said Ceese.
"He calls his mother 'Miz Smitcher'?"
"He's adopted," said Ceese. "And Miz Smitcher was never one for taking a title she hadn't earned. So she taught him to call her Miz Smitcher like all the other neighborhood kids."
The cop shook his head. "The things that go on in Baldwin Hills." He got a little simpering smile on his face. "I didn't grow up with money like that."
"Neither did we," said Ceese. "We grew up in the flat of Baldwin Hills."
"That like the flat of Beverly Hills? Half a million's still a hell of a lot more than I had, growing up."
"So that's what this is about," said Ceese. "You're giving us a hard time after we brought a crime victim to the hospital, not because you think we did anything wrong, but because you don't like our address. How is that different from rousting us because we're black?"
The cop took a step toward him, then stopped and glared. "Well, I guess we're definitely having a ride to central booking and getting your names down in the records. The kid, he's a juvenile, but you—Cecil, is it?—I guess you'll be just another black man with an arrest sheet."
"So you
get a little power," said Ceese, "and it turns you white."
"All that race talk, that's not going to help you much in the county jail, my friend," said the cop.
"Everybody we arrest has a master's degree in victimization."
And that was the moment when Word Williams showed up. "Sir," he said.
The cop whirled on him, ready to be furious at just about anybody. "Who the hell are you?"
"I believe you're holding the keys to my father's car," he said. The way Word talked, like an educated white man, made the cop's attitude change just a little bit. Less strut, more squint—but not a speck nicer.
The cop tossed the keys in his hand. "I wouldn't know," he said. "Who's your father?"
"Dr. Byron Williams, a full professor at Pepperdine University and a noted poet. He called me on his cellphone and told me that Ceese and Mack were taking an injured homeless man to the hospital in his car. He asked me to trade cars with them and get his car cleaned."
The cop had that smirk again. "So I guess everybody in Baldwin Hills is really close friends with each other."
Ceese rolled his eyes.
But Mack answered him sincerely. "No, sir, most people only know their neighbors. I may be the only one who knows everybody."
The cop just shook his head. "Why am I not surprised by anything anymore?"
"Perhaps you'd like to call my father," said Word.
"I already did, but he didn't answer his phone."
"His cellphone?"
"How will I know it's really him?"
Word looked at Ceese. "You must have really pissed this man off. Look, I'll give you his cellphone number. But call the Pepperdine switchboard, ask for the chair of the English department, and then ask her if this is indeed Professor Williams's cellphone number. You'll know she's really the department chair, she'll confirm the number, and then we'll be square, right?"
"Just give me the number," said the cop. He dialed it, without bothering about the switchboard and the department chair. After a minute of listening to Professor Williams, he handed the keys over to Word, with a faintly surly thank you. He didn't so much as say goodbye to Mack and Ceese.
When the cop was out of earshot, Word turned to them and said, "That's how people with petty authority always act. When they're caught being unjust, the only way they can live with themselves is to keep treating you badly because they have to believe you deserve it."
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