He lives somewhere down below the bed, though I'm not really sure where. The living room is downstairs below my bedroom, so he can't really live there or Daddy would see him; he must live in the little space underneath the floor.
He talks to me about things when I'm shut up in here because Daddy says I've been bad. Daddy says I've been bad a lot, every time I do something he doesn't like. Daddy doesn't smile a lot and I don't think he likes me very much anymore.
There was a time when Daddy did like me, but that was a long time ago, when Mommy was still here. I even remember Daddy picking me up and swinging me through the air, letting go and then catching me again, with a big smile on his face. He called me his "little Billy boy." He must have liked me, or he wouldn't have called me that. I even had friends then, and I remember Daddy taking me and all my friends to the ball game once. I spilled soda on myself, and Daddy didn't even get mad; he just smiled and said, "Let me give you a hand there, Billy boy," and helped me clean it up. I spilled soda on myself last week when Daddy's girl friend was here and I thought he was going to kill me.
I remember things began to change just about the time me and Pete Cochran became best friends. Pete's father worked at home, and Mommy used to come over to Pete's house to pick me up after we finished playing. Pete and I played super-heroes, or Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer, or the Hardy boys, and one of us would make believe he was in trouble and the other one would save him. It was fun, and we almost always played it at Pete's house.
But after Daddy and Mommy started fighting I couldn't go to Pete's house anymore, and then Pete couldn't come to mine, and after a while Daddy wouldn't let me go out at all. The fighting got worse and worse, and most of the time I stayed locked in my room. Daddy stopped calling me "Billy boy," and they both started putting me to bed a lot, sometimes in the middle of the day. I almost always had my pajamas on. I think they wanted to get rid of me so they could fight, and I used to lie in bed and listen to them yell at each other and sometimes throw things around. Once, the police came, and that was exciting, but otherwise it wasn't very good. They started to hit me sometimes, too. Mommy hit me once and told me that she and Daddy never wanted to have me, and that the only reason they had me was because Daddy thought it would keep him and Mommy together. She smelled like whiskey when she said it. "At least Pete Cochran's father knows what love is," she said.
After Mommy left, I asked Daddy if that meant that Mommy was Pete Cochran's mommy now instead of mine, but the way he looked at me made me never ask him that again. Things got very lonely after that, and I never went out and didn't see my friends anymore.
The man under my bed came out for the first time right after Mommy left. A few nights I heard sounds down there, like mice or squirrels, and I hid under the covers. Then, one night after Daddy shut me up in here and it was real dark, I heard the trapdoor open and the man came out. I heard him puffing as he pulled himself out of the hole, and then he lay there for a while breathing hard. I was scared stiff and yelled for Daddy to come and when he did come and turned on the light the man was gone, back down in the hole; but as soon as Daddy turned out the light and left, the door opened again and the man pulled himself out. I yelled for Daddy to come back but he wouldn't, so I pulled the covers up over my head and listened through the mattress. I could hear him moving around down there. After a while I couldn't hear him moving, so I pulled one side of the sheets up over the edge of the bed and made a hole so I could listen out.
He started to talk to me then, and for a minute I was afraid since his voice sounded a little creepy, like squashing bugs; but he wasn't saying mean things so after a while I stopped being scared.
"I know how you feel, Billy," he said from down under the bed. "I'm on your side." Then we talked for a while about things I like to do, and what I don't like and things.
After that night, he climbed out of his door and lay down there talking to me every time I got put to bed. You could say he became my best friend, like Pete Cochran used to be. I could talk to him about anything at all. And he really understood how bad Daddy is to me, and he felt sorry for me about it. "I don't like your Daddy," he told me once.
I could imagine him down there lying on his back with his hands behind his head, staring up at the bottom of my bed like it was blue sky with clouds blowing across it. I sort of got the picture of him like Tom Sawyer, with blue jeans on and a straw in his mouth and freckles and a big smile. Even though he told me he didn't look like that and that he couldn't let me see him, the picture I got of him lying down there with freckles and grinning was so strong that I sneaked Daddy's flashlight under the covers with me one night and leaned down over the side of the bed and shone it on him. I had some trouble with the switch, though, and by the time I got it on he was pulling the trapdoor closed behind him. All I saw was his hand on the door rope and the top of his head; he didn't have any hair and was kind of wrinkly-looking. And I got the feeling he wasn't smiling. Then the switch went off and Daddy heard me moving around and came and took the flashlight away.
The man under the bed wouldn't come out for a week after that, and I realized just how lonely it was in the dark without him. I slept most of the time with the covers over my head; I was scared to be in the dark without him, even if he didn't look like Tom Sawyer.
But he did come back a couple of nights ago, just when I needed him most.
Daddy hit me that night, harder than he ever had before. He had his girlfriend home with him and he was drinking whiskey and I asked if I could watch the TV a little longer, and he hit me. Then he put me in my room and turned off the lights and said that if I made any noise he'd beat me some more. I lay under the covers, and I was crying, and then I heard the trapdoor squeak open, slowly, and I heard the man dragging himself out. He sounded tired, but when he started talking to me I could tell he wasn't mad at me anymore. He almost sounded happy. He said he was sorry Daddy hit me and that he wanted to help; he said he might even let me find the trapdoor. He stayed up with me almost all night, until I fell asleep. The next morning after he left I crawled under the bed and, sure enough, I could feel the edges where the door must be; I'd never been able to find them before, no matter how hard I tried. And last night he said Daddy would never hit me again. "Things are going to be all right, Billy boy," he said, and that made me feel warm all over, because I knew he was my friend.
Tonight Daddy's coming home late, and I got into bed by myself just like the man under the bed told me to. He told me to turn out the light and wait for Daddy to come home. He's been under the bed for more than an hour, telling me funny stories that make me laugh, about other kids' daddys and about the things that happened to them. Some of the things are real funny, like what happens in the cartoons I watch in the morning after Daddy goes to work. Even though I know what the man looks like, I still can't help thinking of him lying down there under my bed like Tom Sawyer, with his legs crossed and laughing, telling those funny stories.
It's late now, and I just heard Daddy come in. He's alone, but he sounds like he's been drinking whiskey again. He's bumping into things and cursing.
I can hear Daddy looking for me, since he thinks I'll still be up; he'll probably think of looking in my bedroom any minute. The man under the bed says to be quiet; he says he may even take Daddy through the trapdoor with him to where he lives. Wouldn't that make a funny story, he says, and he laughs. I laugh with him. He says he won't even let the light bother him this time, that he'll come right out from under the bed.
Daddy's outside my door now; I can hear him fumbling with the handle, trying to open it. He finally does, and now his hand is searching for the light switch. He finds it and turns it on, and he looks very surprised to see the two of us in bed, waiting for him.
Hi Daddy.
* * *
Juleen Brantingham is a Shadows regular, and she definitely knows what she's doing.
* * *
THE HOUR OF SILHOUETTE by Juleen Brantingham
The room seemed to be made of windows
. They extended from the ceiling nearly to the floor, their outlines not softened by drapes or curtains except the ones of natural green hanging from half a dozen maples. A sun-room it was called and perhaps it was, earlier in the day. But now, with the hands of the clock approaching six, there was no sun to be seen—only the glare of the sky that, in spite of the generosity of the windows, did not penetrate the room, only reflected from its surfaces.
Those surfaces were the planes and curves of unexpectedly fine furniture—a piano, tables of oiled walnut, upholstery that looked like silk, a delicately colored rug like a painting in thread. It was a surprising room, surprising that it had retained its original character, from a time when this place was not a Home but only a house. How had they kept it so?
Leona Farrier was to be one of the favored few who were allowed to enjoy the beauty of the room and the view from the windows for an hour every day. It was, the nurse had explained, a special treat because she was doing so well. She had not bothered to add that Leona could be trusted not to soil the furniture or to make little messes with stolen food. Such things were understood.
Leona would not have felt particularly honored even if she had been able to think of anything but the agony of putting one foot ahead of the other, leaning on the nurse's arm. She accepted the privilege as she accepted all the privileges of what she saw as her station in life, not as things to be enjoyed in themselves but as marks of rank. Leona knew she was above the usual ruck and run of humanity, but others sometimes needed to be reminded.
At the door to the sun-room Leona paused. Let the nurse think she was admiring the room. It gave her a moment to regain her strength without admitting that she needed that moment. Leona did not regret her earlier rejection of a wheelchair—Leona never regretted her actions—but she did wish sometimes that it was not necessary to set such a good example.
She felt burdened and put upon. She had no patience with the body that had betrayed her, the nurses who patronized her, or with any of the trappings of this refuge for the pitiful. She certainly did not feel honored to be allowed to spend the hour before dinner in the company of the four or five others the nurses considered trustworthy.
She had no faith in their judgment of that either. The old man in the corner, for example. Look at him nodding, mumbling to himself. Any moment now he would probably begin drooling or doing something equally disgusting.
The nurse helped her to a comfortable chair close to the windows, facing them. It was not the place Leona would have chosen for herself, but she felt she could not endure another moment on her feet. The sky was bright, too bright, and she knew she would be able to make out nothing of the features of those who passed between her and the windows. The nurse, leaning over to put a lapboard on Leona's knees, was a silhouette, a dark, twisted thing against the glare.
Leona felt her breath gathering in a sob at the back of her throat. Enough of that. It was upsetting what this illness had done to her carefully ordered life. It was nearly unendurable that it should also play havoc with her emotions, causing her to laugh or cry at the slightest thing until she felt she hardly knew herself.
She blinked away the tears, telling herself it was the glare, picked up the deck of cards and began a game of solitaire. The Solitaire Lady, the old ones called her, their titters drawing a line under the other meaning of the word.
It was dreadful, this waiting. Of course, Leona was only waiting for her health to return, which wasn't nearly as bad as waiting to die. Unlike the others in the Home, she would leave in a week or two to pick up the threads of her life again. She would never look back. This was only an interlude, like the quiet hour before dinner. She could endure even this, knowing it had a limit.
But still it was dreadful, this waiting.
Though she carefully avoided looking out the windows, the glare was giving her a headache. She had always had this trouble with her eyesight, but she had ordered her life so most of the time she hardly noticed it. In her apartment she veiled daylight's glare with gauzy curtains and lit the lamps earlier than most people. She never drove her car after sunset. Her eyes seemingly could not adjust. They played tricks on her. In silhouette and shadow she saw things that should not be there.
More than the waiting, Leona hated her helplessness. Now that she had caught her breath, she could pick up the bell on the table and summon the nurse, ask to be moved to a chair that faced away from the windows. But to do so would make her seem like the others, the whiners and fussers who had abdicated control of their lives to the white goddesses.
Rather than act like those she despised, Leona would endure. In a day or two the trip from her room would not exhaust her, and if she felt like moving from one chair to another she could do it without help.
Her hands counted and turned the cards, stacked and rearranged so quickly she didn't have to think about the game. It was as if her hands played, leaving her mind free to wander and reflect. Some minds are not made for reflection, as some pieces of glass are made to be seen through, not into. But under some conditions, when the light is exactly so, images can be seen.
It came to Leona suddenly that she had hurt people. Her husband, perhaps, and her children. It was a novel thought. Is that why they—And did he, because—
She had never played solitaire before she came to the Home. She'd never had much interest in trivial games, but here one needed something to help the hands of the clock move along. From time to time one of the other trustworthies spoke to her. She did not look up, knowing she would see only painful glare and silhouette. She did not reply for these people were inconsequential, only a step or two away from what the nurses euphemistically referred to as "failing."
Except for herself, of course.
After a time they took the hint and stopped bothering her. Two of them sat near the center of the room, behind her chair, gossiping about long-dead contemporaries and their nearly forgotten scandals. Another was coaxing soft notes from the piano. Only the old man remained where Leona could see him, in his corner, and then only if she looked up from her solitaire. She did not look up, though from the corner of her eye she was aware of his presence, partially silhouetted against the glare, partially wrapped in the shadows formed by the angle of the walls separating the windows.
There was something about the old man she had noted as the nurse brought her to this chair, something familiar. Her husband, father, and brother were dead and she knew it could not be her son. That left her lovers—but she had forgotten them almost as soon as she knew them, so no use to try to call up their memories now.
For a few moments it amused her to wonder if the old man might have been part of that most vivid memory—the rising and falling, rising and falling, while in the next room her husband was dying. His doctor, hadn't it been? His final words, which she had been almost too late to hear, had been of his gratitude and love for a self-sacrificing, faithful wife.
It had been almost a litany of their marriage. It occurred to her now that he must have known of her lovers and hoped by repeating the words to make them work a kind of magic.
A silhouette. That's all he had ever seen. A silhouette.
The doctor had also been complimentary during those moments preceding her husband's crisis, but he hadn't been thinking of her more respectable attributes. Again a silhouette. Could it have been the old man? It was briefly amusing to think so.
She glanced at her watch. The hands had hardly moved since the last time she looked. The hours had substance here, and weight. They bowed the shoulders of the elderly infirm. Here Leona's time was all the same, for herself, but scheduled to suit the convenience of others. It was a step backward into childhood, and Leona resented it.
What she had seen of the sun-room, briefly shielding her eyes against the glare, was lovely. In a more gracious time someone had taken pains with the furnishings. The lines suggested airiness and ease, but these were not the usual flimsy summer things. It would be the perfect place to entertain guests, away from the harsh sterility of
the rest of the converted house.
Leona did not expect guests and did not regret their absence. Before she came here she had given strict orders and she was not the kind of woman who expected, even hoped to have those orders disobeyed. She most definitely did not want visitors while she was here at the Home. She thought of herself as the strong one, the one on whom others leaned. She did not care to have her friends see her, even temporarily, against a background of those who all their lives must have been pushed about by circumstance. She could not be pushed. Someone might assume her illness had changed her.
She had been the one to decide she must spend time in a Home rather than be a burden to her family. She had chosen this Home and made the arrangements. She gave the orders that she was to be left alone to mend. She was in charge, always.
And she was in charge even of this foolish card game. When it seemed there were no more moves to be made, she cut the cards she held in her hand, rearranging her options.
"I s-saw that!"
Stupid old man.
"I s-saw th-that. You ch-cheated!"
The note of hysteria in his voice brought silence to the rest of the room. These old people were so foolish. Tempests in teapots were the only thing that kept them from dying immediately of boredom. But they had the attention span of a two-year-old. Leona ignored the old man, waiting for him to fall back into the pool of his memories.
Red queen on the black king ignore the creeping hours. This interlude would end.
The nurse came to summon the others to their rooms for dinner. She stayed by the door to speak to someone. Leona sat helpless, forced to wait for the nurse's strong arms, hating it.
When the old man got to his feet, casting a shadow on Leona's lapboard, she looked at him once, quickly, fearing the touch of her glance would bring on his hysteria again. She blinked as the glare brought tears to her eyes. His dark presence was a grotesque thing, seemingly covered with lumps and clots that fell away as he moved. When he was gone, the lumps remained in the corner as if waiting for his return.
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