by Bruce Jones
She was pointing, his dear, agitated, flummoxed but somehow still-beautiful wife, past his shoulder. Richard followed her arm, then her index finger and saw that it was their spotless kitchen floor she pointed at. No longer so spotless. Not with that set of muddy tracks leading across to them here to the counter. Leading across from the open kitchen door.
It’s still in the house!
But he knew, somehow, it wasn’t. Knew too, that it may never have been at all. Because the mud-smudged tracks were human. And his feet were dirty.
He looked back at Allie with such sincere determination to explain, her distraught face became even a little more sleepy-soft. But her eyes still said: Well? I’m waiting!
“Best guess,” Richard began, still sincere but with slipping determination, “I was doing a little gardening…”
His wife stared at him.
Richard looked around the kitchen as if for hidden assistance, unseen answers. His eyes came back to the empty bottle of rum in her hand. “And, apparently, a little drinking.”
Allie pursed her lips dryly, set the bottle back on the counter. “Apparently.” She gave him a long, accessing look, the kind that left her plenty of time to cross her arms admonishingly. “Richard…are you having an affair?”
He blinked blankly at that one. “A which?”
Arms still folded tightly, she looked him up and down as if considering the possible purchase of a little horse flesh. Or, in his case, a gelding. “Men sometimes begin drinking heavily and acting…strangely in the early stages of an affair.”
“That a fact? Freud, is that?”
“Oprah.”
“Ah. A genuine expert.”
“Talk to me, Richard.”
“No. I am not having an affair.” The word may have instantly brought an image of Laurie Seasons to mind, but no, he was not having an affair.
“Tell me what, then.”
“What, what?”
“You’re keeping something from me, I can see it in your eyes.”
An understatement that had him choking back guffaws of unbridled laughter.
“Yeah? Well, you can see more than I can, toots.”
“’Toots’?”
Richard shrugged. “I never denied I was drunk.”
She came to him then, all traces of suspicion gone from her eyes, only love remaining. She cupped his cheek softly, bit her lower lip with concern for him. “What is it then, baby? Are you worried about money? Don’t. We’re a little low, sure, but we’ll be fine.”
He didn’t deserve her, not one lovely inch of her. Richard put his arms around her, pulled her close. Had to bite his tongue to force down the tears. “I love you, Allie.”
“Sweetheart.”
She held him. Her hair smelled wonderful, slightly shampooish, slightly sleepy.
The whole kitchen smelled good, in fact. Clean and fresh as pine-scented morning dew.
Maybe it was the breeze from the open kitchen door…
* * *
Nobody wanted to play poker.
It was Sunday night, poker night all right, but none of the Enders was interested, even if they did make a great pretense of it there in Maser’s spacious finished basement—or rathskeller, as the good doctor preferred to call it. All knotty pine walls, and competition size pool table and original Wurlitzer jukebox bubbling colorfully in one corner, surrounded by expensively framed original movie posters of 50’s sci-fi films like ‘Them!’ and ‘The Deadly Mantis’ and ‘The Black Scorpion’ (Maser had been big on giant insect films as a kid). The four of them sat around a green felt-topped card table, cigar smoke hanging heavy in the air, Buddy Holly and The Skyliners booming from hidden quad speakers.
“I’m foldin’” Scroogie said and threw down his cards.
Pete Shivers, immediately giving away an obvious good hand by his tone, said, “Fold! You haven’t even drawn a card yet!”
But Scroogie was up and pacing the basement, hands thrust in jeans. Good thing, Richard thought, he’d been looking like he was itching to pace and the evening had only just begun. “Folding!” Scroogie called back, face pale and moist under Maser’s fancy spot beam ceiling lights, “I’m fucking folding up inside!”
Nobody said anything. Everybody thought the same thing. As usual.
Scroogie paced. Picked up a magazine—an old issue of Famous Monsters—from a glass coffee table and put it back again. “Folding, goddamnit!” he cried when no one paid him any mind, “do you fucking guys fucking hear me!”
Maser tossed in a card, drew another. “Please keep your fucking voice down, Uncle Scrooge, my poor invalid mother’s trying to fucking sleep. And settle down. I told you I’d loan you the money.”
“It isn’t about the damn money, Maze and you know it! You know exactly what it’s about!”
Maser heaved a sigh, turned to Richard. “Rich? You holding?”
Richard, who had been watching the animated Scroogie with concern turned to Maser now with a blank expression. “What?”
Maser rolled his eyes, puffed cigar smoke. “Holding! Are you holding!”
Richard glanced desultorily at his cards. “Yeah, I’m holding.”
Maser nodded. “Shivers?”
Pete Shivers was turned away too, black-circled eyes on the trembling Scroogie. He didn’t seem to hear Maser either.
“Chevalier!”
Shivers jumped. “Jesus, Joseph and Mary, what the fuck’s the matter with you, Maser? You stealin’ uppers from your office cabinet again?”
Maser glared at his old friend. “I told you to lay off that shit, Shiv.”
Shivers held up his hands. “It’s a joke, ya fucking moron!”
“Well, not a very funny fucking joke!” Maser snapped back.
“Do you think we could possibly use the word ‘fuck’ again soon?” from Richard.
That settled the other two down a notch, though it did nothing to stop Scroogie’s restless pacing. And soon enough that got Maser riled all over again. “Will you for chrissake come back here and play cards, John, or sit down or something? Quit obsessing!”
Which seemed to be the moment in tonight’s conversation Scroogie had been waiting for: he leapt at it, leapt a little at Maser, in fact. “I’m getting sick of sweeping this fuckin’ thing under the fuckin’ car--”
“Shut up, Scroogie!” Maser’s voice was sharp and final, his eyes strangely on Richard.
“But the psychological ramifications—“
Maser made a dismissive sound, drew another card. “You wouldn’t know psychological ramifications if they…rammed your ass.”
“Gee,” Shivers gushed, tossing in a card, “that was clever.”
“Fuck you, Pete.”
“Why do we do this?” Richard said, appraising the wet end of his cigar.
“Because we did it when we were kids,” Maser said.
“I mean smoke these awful cigars,” Richard said, stubbing his out in the glass tray.
“Because we did it as kids,” Maser repeated.
“Did a lot of things as kids,” Scroogie paced back and forth, looking paler than ever, “even seemed to reach into each other’s minds sometimes. But we aren’t kids anymore, and Richard and I are having nightmares, and we all know—“
Maser stood up suddenly in front of Scroogie. His look was murderous. “Shut the fuck up, Scroogie…” he said, his voice ominously now.
“That word again,” Richard said, tossed his cards after the cigar and sat back, hands laced behind his head. “This is useless. No one’s concentrating.”
“I’m concentrating!” from an irate Shivers, “I gotta goddamn full house here!”
Maser reached over and snapped Shivers’ cards away before Pete could stop him. He glanced at Shivers’ hand quickly and threw them back at him. “You got shit.”
“Well, at least I’m trying to keep our minds on the damn game, unlike you assholes! At least I’m trying to have a nice evening with my two old friends—sorry, three old friends—now that Ri
ch is back! Instead of moping around talking about some stupid nightmare!”
“That you’re having too, Shiv,” Scroogie exclaimed pointedly with both tone and body language, “and why can’t you just say it? It’s all about repression, isn’t it, huh, fellas? A dog! A mangy-looking, diseased, dripping old mutt! That sneaks into our collective bedrooms. And talks, by the way!”
“Your collective consciousness, maybe,” Maser intoned calmly, relighting his cigar, “I haven’t seen this famous dog monster.”
Scroogie threw up his hands, groaned at the ceiling. “Oh come on, Maze! Tell me you haven’t seen the thing creeping up to your bed at night, all drooling and puss-drippin’ and stinkin’ of the grave! Tell me!”
Maser shuffled the cards again absently. ‘If I had seen it—which I haven’t—it wouldn’t be in my bedroom. It would be in my mind, John. My mind. Just like you.”
“Horse shit!”
Richard was staring at Pete Shivers. “What’s the matter with you, Shiv?”
Shivers was looking a little pale now as well; not quite as pale as Scroogie, but getting there. Pale and confused and more than a little upset. “A dog?”
He looked around at the others, even turned in his chair to look across the basement at Scroogie, who had stopped pacing to look back at him, and nod. “A dog, yeah. Wha’d you think it was, Shiv?”
Shivers seemed to grow smaller in his chair, shoulders shrunken when he shrugged them. “I dunno. Kind of…to me…I don’t know…sort of human, I guess.” And he looked again quickly at the others as if in fear of ridicule, of getting a big smirking laugh. No one did.
And no one said anything for a while. Quite a while.
And when some one finally did, it was—surprisingly—Maser. He was still shuffling the cards, but looking past them at Richard now. “What did it look like to you, Rich?”
“Does!” Scroogie demanded, coming over now the conversation had finally turned his way.
“What does it look like to you, Rich?” Maser repeated.
Richard shifted uncomfortably in his folding chair. Finally nodded a little. “I’d have to go with the Shiv. I mean, I dunno, sometimes it definitely seems to go on all fours like a dog or animal or whatever, then other times it looks more human. Especially the eyes. And—“
Everyone looked up when Richard didn’t finish his sentence.
“And what?” Maser said.
Richard sighed. “I did hear it talk, like Scroogie said.”
“Ha!” from the Scrooge.
“What did it say?” Maser asked.
Richard felt a sudden bottomless quaking, wasn’t at all sure he cared to repeat it—could repeat it. He cleared his throat. Took a swig of wine, cleared it again. “It was in my bedroom. This was the other night. It came into my bedroom while I was asleep—“
“How’d you see it if you were asleep,” Maser demanded, “except in a dream?”
“Let him finish!” Scroogie squealed, grabbing his fifth beer from the miniature refrigerator and taking a slug.
Richard gestured at the air. “Allie was sleeping. I was awake.”
“So Allie didn’t see it too?” from Maser.
“Maze for chrissake!” Shivers spit. Then to Richard: “Go on, Rich.”
Richard found himself rubbing his palms on his jean thighs. “It came in through the bedroom door like I said, reeking of the grave. And it said… ‘Room for one more?’”
Scroogie’s eyes rolled back. “Fuck,” he whispered. Richard was sure he was going to roll back over himself chasing his eyelids, but the big man stayed upright.
Maser remained professionally calm; maybe from a sense of duty to the others. “And that was the last time you saw it, Rich?”
Richard shook his head. “No. I saw it…I think I saw it last night.”
Scroogie gripped his stomach, wailed.
“Shut-up, Scroogie,” Shivers barked.
“What happened last night?” Maser asked.
Richard told him then.
When he was through, you could have heard a pin drop. On a foam mattress. In a vacuum.
Maser shuffled the cards absently. ‘Think,’” you said.
“Sorry?” from Richard, looking a little worn at the edges from relating the tale.
“You said before, ‘I think it’s the last time I saw it’.”
“It was the last time,” Richard told him. In the ensuing silence he gave Maser a scrutinized look. “But I ended up on the kitchen floor. Drunk. Right? That what you’re getting at, Maze?”
“All I’m trying to get at is the truth, Rich.”
Richard was about to spit back an acid rejoinder, but felt himself settle back in the folding chair suddenly like soft taffy. He shrugged, looked up at the recessed ceiling lights. “Yeah. I was drunk. And there’s a big gap there between the time the…thing chased me up to the landing and Allie found me sprawled on the kitchen floor.”
“Beside an empty bottle of Mt. Gay Rum,” Maser reminded.
Richard sighed, giving him the marbles. “Beside an empty bottle of rum, yes. It could have all been a dream…another of your so-called nightmares. Only why am I somehow not mollified by that? Why does that feel like trading nightmares for a mild case of psychosis? And why do I almost prefer the former?”
Maser flipped the edges of the cards through his fingers making a ticking sound. “It may well be some form of mild psychosis.”
“Thank you for including the word ‘mild.’” Rich told him.
“Psychosis from what?” Shivers wanted to know.
“Any number of things,” Maser shrugged, again eyeing Richard askance. “Usually psychosis is rooted in childhood.”
“Not any number of things!” Scroogie sneered vehemently, “and not just one childhood! Several! Four of them, in fact! What happened to us, guys? What the living Christ happened? Don’t any of us remember?” He was staring hard at Maser, his face red and challenging. “Were we all molested by the same pedophile? Shivers? Your old man was always kind of a weirdo…”
Everyone jumped then about twenty feet straight up as John Shivers’ fist slammed the card table. “Fuck this! Fuck all this shit!! It’s all a lot of B movie bullshit and every one of you knows it! It’s some silly goddamn thing we saw together as kids like Rich says! Some stupid Roger Corman flick or whatever!”
“Only we can’t seem to recall the title,” Scroogie said softly. He looked clammy. Deflated.
Shivers, angrier than Richard had ever seen him, grabbed the deck out of Maser’s startled hands and began dealing cards rapidly, zinging them before the players with a kind of fevered professional accuracy that surprised everyone.. “We came here to play goddamn cards! Now let’s for chrissake play some goddamn cards!” When his hands had quit flying, he grabbed up his own cards and peered fuming over the tops at the others. “It sure as hell beats sitting around here like a bunch of wet old hens looking like we just found out our best friend contracted cance—“
--and he froze in mid-deal, card hand still in the air, Bicycle logo almost leaving it, like a frozen frame in a movie projector, just before the film expands, bubbles, and becomes a white hole.
Shivers lowered his hand slowly, sank back in his chair and turned humiliated eyes to Richard. A thin line of sweat traced his left temple. “Sorry, Rich. Jesus, sorry. That was unconscionable. To say nothing of totally moronic. Forgive me?”
Richard smiled, punched Shivers arm. “It’s okay, Shiv. Really. Forget it.”
Scroogie blew out a deep breath, picked up his cards. “Maybe it’s time we all just said it out loud and got it over with. Richard has cancer. There. Big deal. Now let’s move on, ‘kay?”
“Can’t,” Maser said, puffing smoke and collecting his cards calmly.
Scroogie frowned at him. “Can’t what, move on? Why? Because Rich has cancer? So what?”
Maser fanned his cards, plucked out, rearranged, stuck in. “He doesn’t, though.”
Nobody said a word. Everyone stared at
Maser.
Richard swallowed. “Maze--?”
Maser smiled apology at Richard. “Sorry, Rich. Hadn’t planned on spilling it in front of everyone. But then, who better than your closest friends, right?”
Richard stared at him, refusing to believe, not daring to believe.
“I don’t get it,” Scroogie said, “what are you saying, Maze? I thought the idea was that Rich was—you know…“
“Terminal’s the word you’re looking for,” Maser told him. “Yes. That is the ugly little word. That is what our oldest, dearest friend was. And now he isn’t.”
Shivers blinked. “Just like that?”
Shivers sat up straight. “Maze, if this is some kind of joke, it’s in pretty poor—“
“Your last tests came back,” Maser said, turning to Richard. “Actually…I knew—or strongly suspected—quite a few tests ago…”
“Why the hell didn’t you say something?” Scroogie demanded.
“He didn’t want to get my hopes up,” Richard said softly. And found, quite suddenly, that he was a less dramatically surprised by this than the situation warranted, certainly than he ever dreamed he’d be. He sat there shaking his head slowly. “I knew something was wrong.” He smiled. “--or right, I suppose. I just wasn’t sure what it was.”
Scrooge looked from Maser to the others then back to Maser again, still unconvinced. “Maze, are you absolutely, without a doubt—“
“Yes. Without a doubt.”
And Richard’s throat closed up on him suddenly and he felt warm tears on his cheeks, right through his smile. And everyone just smiled back at him—then at each other—and let him cry like that a little bit.
Maser finally put down his silly cards. “Not to throw cold water on it—“
Scroogie jerked around.
Maser held up his hand. “---the tests are final, Scroogie. Rest assured of that, Rich. There is not cancer cell one in your entire system. I’m trying to trace down the mistake that led to a false diagnosis, but—“
“But?” from an edgy Shivers.
“No buts, Shiv. It’s just that this is pretty…no, this is extremely unprecedented. I went through all the books. Couldn’t find a remission case with this type cancer even close to this, let alone a complete cure. Had to have been a mistake. Or--” He looked back at Richard. “-- my good, very dear friend, what you have is a miraculous cure.”