by Joe Meno
The bald child turns around in his seat once more and smiles, blinking at Gus Munford sitting behind him. But Gus Mumford, notorious bully of the third grade, is too afraid to lift his head to see. The bald boy turns back around, tears a corner from his notepad, and begins composing a reply. Within a few moments, he has finished; he folds the note up into a perfect white triangle, waits for Miss Gale to continue with more of her useless enumerations, and turns quick, with finesse, simply placing the note on the very edge of Gus Mumford’s desk. Gus, peeking from between his fingers, grabs the note dizzily and begins reading it, hidden between the open pages of his mathematical primer. The note is equal in its simplicity, but the handwriting is soft and looping and pretty: I LIKE YOUR EYE-LASHES AS WELL.
We are amazed at how a few short words have such a profound effect on our friend, Gus Mumford. His face goes red and warm and he hides the note in his pants pocket, afraid that the contents of his secret correspondence might somehow be revealed. What to do now, though? A reply to his reply? Is this how it is done? How are friends made? He does not know. He has never passed a note across class to someone before. He has held their faces against dead birds, wire fences, the hardwood floor of the gym, but never has he been so intimate with a child his own age as this moment here. Before he can consider a proper course of action, the bald child turns again, in a whirl, and deposits a second note on the corner of his desk. Gus Mumford is more than a little surprised. Perhaps the other boy has made a mistake. Perhaps he has changed his mind and realized he did not care for Gus’s eyelashes at all. With less enthusiasm, Gus Mumford slowly opens the note in his lap.
It says: I KNOW YOU ARE SMART.
What occurs now is certain dread: It is Gus Mumford’s most hidden shame, most hidden secret, and here this small creature—this stranger—has so easily discerned it within a matter of a few short days, the admission bright red on Gus Mumford’s face. Yes, yes, he is smart—smarter than the smartest child in class by books and books and years and years—but to consider the thought, to accurately grasp the notion while watching Gus Mumford force-feed a smaller boy the end of a length of worm, it seems near to impossible.
Gus Mumford stares down at the small, daintily written words and sighs, knowing any friendship with this child has now been lost, any hope of camaraderie has been dispelled with the apparent knowledge of his most vicious secret, and so he resumes his position, resting his face in his folded arms. Miss Gale ruminates on the potency of addition and subtraction, the sounds hanging in the air like a wordless dirge. If Gus Mumford was capable, surely he would cry, but as a bully he has not the capacity for it, and instead sniffles his nose, unsatisfied with the incompleteness of this, his most sad facial expression. It is then that, as a complete surprise, the bald boy turns around once again in a flash, and when Gus Mumford peers from above his hands, he sees a third and final note sitting there. Quickly, without regard for Miss Gale’s prying eyes, Gus opens the note and stares at the small curves of the words, his face still flush, his nose still twitching.
It says: YOU ARE NOT A VERY BELIEVABLE BULLY.
FOURTEEN
At Shady Glens, the boy detective leaves his room during Bingo Hour—an hour when he usually tries to avoid entering the hallway—because he has heard that the lovely Nurse Eloise has baked a gigantic buttercream cake, which is one of Billy’s favorites. It is shaped like an enormous Eiffel Tower. In the white-tiled boredom of the television room, Nurse Eloise welcomes him and carves him a large piece.
“I’ve got some wonderful news, Billy. I’ve gotten back together with my boyfriend and we’re going to Paris next month. His magic show has been booked there for four weeks, so I thought we should all celebrate. I know you like buttercream.”
“It looks lovely.”
“The only rule is that you eat it here with us, Billy,” she says.
Billy turns and watches the other lunatics eating: Mr. Pluto is wolfing the treat down with his enormous fingers, smashing it into the monstrous cavity of his mouth; Professor Von Golum is stabbing another resident in the neck with his fork; Mr. Lunt is sleeping, his bearded face resting atop his slice. Each of them has somehow found a new way to be very, very disgusting. Billy smiles and decides he is not too hungry.
He hurries back down the hall and returns to his room.
In a moment, there is a knock at the door. He opens it and finds his slice of cake with a napkin and a glass of milk sitting there.
It is so beautiful he almost cries. He decides Nurse Eloise is the nicest person of all time. The boy detective drinks the milk and gently wraps the cake up in the napkin, deciding he will keep it for work tomorrow, when he knows he will be feeling bad, indubitably.
* * *
As the boy detective is lying in bed, he turns the light switch on and soon it begins snowing. The tiny flakes glitter down all around and disappear as they touch the tile floor:
snow snow snow snow snow snow snow snow
snow snow snow snow snow snow snow snow
snow snow snow snow snow snow
snow snow snow
snow snow
Following the snow as it drifts down with his eyes, Billy notices his arch-foe, Professor Von Golum, curled beneath the bed frame. Though the old man is asleep, there is a length of shiny wire twisted in his hands, the murder weapon held close, at the ready.
“Professor, may I ask what you are doing down there?”
“I was planning on strangling you as soon as you went to sleep.”
“I see.”
“Perhaps it was poor planning, but I could not stay awake. It is very comfortable under here.”
“Would you like some help out from underneath?”
“No. No, I’m all right. I’ll just stay here, if you don’t mind.”
Billy sighs, turning on his side.
“Professor?”
“Yes?”
“May I ask you a question, sir?”
“Yes, but know it may be the last question you ever ask.”
“Have you ever been in love, sir?”
“Oh, my poor, poor childish detective. Surely you must know by now. Love is the invention of man. It does not exist. It is a fairy tale designed to keep order. Imagine how we as humans would behave if we freed ourselves from the idiocy of that one particular idea: what a wonderful world; what a world of absolute possibility.”
“I think I may be in love, sir.”
“May I ask how you know? How can you prove it? You are a detective, no? Where is the evidence? What clues are you basing this foolish assumption on?”
“I don’t know, really. It just occurs as a feeling in my hands and behind my knees.”
“But can it be placed in a bell jar? Can it be seen under a microscope? How can something as invisible—as insubstantial—as love ever hope to last?”
“I cannot stop thinking about kissing her.”
“That is chemistry—or biology—it has nothing to do with hearts and flowers and the like. Do not be confused by what the natural world knows: We are all, in our own way, completely and totally alone. If love is real, it is a complete and total failing of the intellect. It is utter self-destruction. It is pandemonium.”
“Yes, thank you, sir.”
“It is my pleasure, Billy.”
In the near dark, the boy detective finds his bottle of pills and quickly swallows one Ativan, holding his breath until he is sure the villain has crept out. He looks up in wonder as the soft haze of snow drifts down.
FIFTEEN
It is past midnight and the boy detective is watching the Mumford children again. The houses on the small street are quiet and still, their lights having been turned off for the evening. But there is Effie Mumford, in her purple and white jacket, kneeling beside another amateur rocket, this one very slim and golden, her brother Gus looking quite sleepy in pajamas, sitting on the porch. Billy notes in his notepad:
—12:10am: Subject, Effie Mumford, prepares for second rocket test. Subject and her brot
her, Gus Mumford, both wearing pajamas.
—12:11am: Subject ignites rocket.
—12:12am: Rocket does not lift off ground: the fuse seems not to be working.
—12:13am: Subject, Effie Mumford, stands the rocket, inspecting the firing mechanism.
—12:14am: Subject kicks the rocket, knocking off the nose-cone: the rocket sparks and explodes, knocking the subject off her feet.
—12:15am: Rocket shoots directly up into the sky, leaving a long, silver trail of sparks: Subject, Effie Mumford, and Gus Mumford clap wildly.
—12:16am: In the dark sky, the rocket explodes. In a flash of blue and white sparks, a message is spelled out which, noted here, reads, “ANYONE OUT THERE.”
—12:17am: Very quickly, lights in neighboring houses switch on. Mrs. Mumford opens the front door and begins shouting. The Mumford children are hurried inside.
SIXTEEN
In the dark, the boy detective lies in bed, staring at Caroline’s diary.
i may have made a terrible mistake:
forgetting that i was not a true detective
forgetting i was not my brother, Billy
failing to remember how i was no genius
or failing to remember how i was not so very smart
or so very
useful on my own
i have stumbled upon something i do not grasp;
nothing makes sense without him
and worse, it seems all my
days go by without an end to this mystery
there is no hope of reprieve
do i dare tread into the dark again on my own?
do i dare walk unescorted once more into evil
all i hear are the whispers of my doom
at night, as i lay in bed
in quiet voices, i am often reminded of
the silent immovability of the dead, while the
stiff hands of those ghosts, murky, floating underwater, reach out to me
you will never know the terror of doubt, Billy
you will never know the terror of being without you
Billy gets up, goes over to the dresser, opens the bottom drawer, lifts out the detective kit, then sits on the bed, peering at the aged box. He cannot get himself to open it, not even when there may be a mystery somewhere in this very world—at this very moment—afoot. Like that, with his sister’s diary in his hand, he begrudgingly falls asleep.
Billy, in a dream, descends slowly into a dark and mossy cavern, past the signs that mark it. Holding a flashlight, he climbs further and further, listening to someone crying. At the bottom of the cave, through the dark, Billy can see his sister Caroline, still a young girl. In a white and yellow dress, she cries, “Help me, Billy.”
Billy approaches in a hurry, and suddenly a horrible ram-horned, claw-fingered demon leaps out from the darkness, howling.
The boy detective wakes up to Mr. Lunt’s screaming. Billy sits up, covered in sweat, still holding the diary, which he stares at, confused, as he sets it beside him on the nightstand. He turns and hears Nurse Eloise in her squeaky white nurse shoes march down the hall.
“It’s only a dream, Mr. Lunt, dear, it’s only a dream.”
“Phantoms! Phantoms! I seen them! They’re coming! They’re coming for me!”
Billy lies back down, pulling the pillow over his head. He considers the bottles of pills beside his bed. It is only a moment later when the owl alarm clock begins ringing.
SEVENTEEN
The boy detective, at work, flips through the Mammoth Life-Like catalog and notices the model for the Metropolitan Debutante looks very much like the lady he has seen on the bus, the lady in pink. With his pen, he draws a small scarf over her head and then a small set of eyeglasses over the woman’s face.
“Hello,” he says to the catalog. “I am sorry for scaring you away again.”
At lunch time, the boy detective goes to the office kitchen to retrieve his piece of buttercream cake, but it is gone. He stares at the spot in the refrigerator, the blue napkin lying there empty, a few golden crumbs hidden in its folds. He turns and begins to look around the office: Someone else has eaten it—he is sure of it. The boy detective has a reasonable suspicion that the culprit is Tad from accounting, but he is too preoccupied to bother tracking him down. His medication does not seem to be working very well today; he cannot concentrate. He returns to his desk and sighs. He is supposed to be making calls, but he ignores the phone and instead stares at the drawing of the lady in pink.
“Someone ate my cake,” he says to the picture.
The picture seems to smile empathetically.
“I know. These people are savages.”
The picture cheers him to go on.
“Some of them are OK.”
The picture seems to tilt an ear closer to him.
“With you, I feel very comfortable,” he says. “With you, I feel I can say anything.”
* * *
The boy detective is on the phone later that day: “Yes, it’s exactly that, sir, a miracle. A miracle of modern living. Hair-replacement surgery can be expensive and dangerous. So why risk it? What we offer you is quality hair replacement without the serious dangers and side effects.”
“What’s your name, again?”
“Billy, Billy Argo. Mammoth Life-Like …”
“Billy, I want you to listen to me: I just lost everything I had in a fire. It’s like I wasn’t even supposed to be alive and yet here I am.”
“I see.”
“It’s all gone. My whole life. Everything.”
“Yes.”
“I lost my wife. I lost my wife. I lost her, too.”
“I am so sorry, sir …”
“Billy, I did some awful things. I made some awful mistakes. I want to apologize to her right now and I can’t. I want to tell her how sorry I am. Do you think she still might hear me? Do you think?”
“I do not know,” Billy whispers.
“Billy Argo, my greatest fear is to die alone.”
“Noted.”
“Billy Argo, now you tell me your greatest fear.”
The boy detective is quiet for some time. He holds his breath and listens to the sound of the other man crying.
“I am afraid of not knowing the answer to something.”
“I don’t understand,” the man says.
“I am afraid that when the time comes, I won’t know the answer to the question someone is asking.”
“Oh,” the man says. “That’s very understandable.”
“Yes,” Billy adds, “love is one of the questions I do not even know how to begin to answer.”
After that phone call, the boy detective hides in the washroom, crying in front of the dirty mirror. He washes his face again and again in case someone walks in and wonders why he is only standing there, sobbing. He finds a Seroquel in his pocket and takes it, drinking a handful of water from the sink.
At the end of the work day, the boy detective once again passes the ladies’ wigs division. He glances at Eric Quimby’s desk and sees the small gold placard has mysteriously been changed: It now reads Penelope Anders, and there is no mark of the previous occupant’s presence. Billy hurries back to his desk, collects his things, and just then his telephone begins to ring. He answers it quickly and a high whine hums through the wires.
The voice, strange and metallic, begins to sing: “It’s always twilight for lovers … It’s always twilight for love …” Billy slams down the phone and gazes around the empty office, then hurries toward the elevator. The device is slow to arrive at the boy detective’s floor. He is looking around nervously, panicked. He thinks he can hear someone walking slowly up the stairwell. The elevator draws near, the golden needle above the entrance to the machine rising, indicating it is now only a few floors away. Right then the stairwell door opens and a strange masked woman in a gray flannel skirt approaches, stops, stares at Billy, then places a hand beneath a plastic flower pinned to her blouse. Immediately the flower begins glowing.
In that moment, Billy is stunned.
He begins backing away, pressing the call button to the elevator hurriedly, as the masked woman approaches. The villain does not speak, only steps slowly forward to follow as Billy struggles to escape, crashing backwards into a tall golden cigarette ashtray. The masked woman aims the flower, which shoots an invisible malignant ink and which vaporizes the ashtray from existence. Billy howls with fear, stamping his feet. As the masked woman moves very close to Billy, the elevator chimes, the mechanical doors open, and Billy rushes inside, securing a narrow escape. When the doors shudder closed, the masked woman makes a final attempt, the stream of acid hissing through the panels, before the machine rattles downward, ending her attack.
In the lobby, the boy detective hurries outside and finds a strange-looking delivery van parked at the curb, idling. Inside the gray vehicle are four well-dressed women, all wearing black masquerade masks. Billy stumbles to a halt as the van pulls away and, in a glimpse, he catches the faded lettering of the rear door: Property of Gotham Amusement Park. In his notepad, Billy makes the appropriate marks and wonders onto what strange villains he has stumbled, and upon what nefarious scheme.
EIGHTEEN
Safe at Shady Glens: The boy detective is attempting to watch an episode of Modern Police Cadet, but the television room is much too noisy. Why? It is because Mr. Pluto is crying. Professor Von Golum is pacing in front of the television screen, shouting something angrily. Mr. Lunt, in the orange chair beside Billy, is snoring loudly. Each, in his own way, is destroying Billy. Why? The boy detective is getting very agitated, having never seen this episode of Modern Police Cadet before. He is unsure where it fits into the nearly seven years of the program’s history. In the show the Cadet is wearing a black tie, which usually signifies an episode from Season Two. However, the Cadet is driving the police coupe instead of riding as a passenger, which signals it is the program’s very last season. He is also wearing a silver badge—which to the discerning eye means he has already graduated from the Scotland Yard Academy—but his partner from the first three seasons, Benny, a wise-cracking street-tough detective from Edinburgh transplanted to the strange world of London crime, is riding beside him. More disconcerting than all that, the Modern Police Cadet’s flat is totally foreign: The Cadet seems to be living alone, no university textbooks from his second-season wife, Trish. Additionally, the Modern Police Cadet is kissing some strange woman, a brunette with very long hair, and because the noise in the television room is so loud, Billy has no idea why any of this might be happening.