by S. T. Joshi
“No,” he said. “My Georgie is a beautiful boy.”
“Of course he is, Michael, but you must affix that to the way he is, not some fantasy about who he could have been under other circumstances.”
“He’s intelligent! He’s a gem! He’s going to play lacrosse, get straight A’s, and go to the prom with the Homecoming Queen! And when he graduates summa cum laude from Cornell, Harvard, or Duke, I’m going to buy him a Ferrari!”
“You won’t, Michael, and it’s actually time to talk about the business end of things since you’ve opened that door.”
“You’re talking finances? You’re kidding. I’m the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Widener University for Chrissake!”
“You’re not, Michael. Not anymore. You lost that position three years ago. You never recovered from Stephanie’s death, you refused to get Georgie professional help, and you wore yourself down to a thread. You lost the house, and Margaret informed me that Blue Cross Keystone hasn’t received a premium from you in six months. You can’t even afford to drop him off at the center at this point.”
“It’s a lie! I just got a late start today and—”
“Regardless, I believe we should discuss aid from the state and possible institutionalization.”
“I’d never ever put my Georgie in a nut house!”
“I meant both of you, Michael. Separately. For your safety and his.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
The man sat forward, hands folding atop the knee ever so softly.
“Michael,” he said, “your son George has severe obsessive compulsion, sociopathic tendencies, and a highly impressive sensory disorder.”
“How dare you!”
“You have spent the last three and a half years trying to reason with a damaged human being whose special needs warrant professional attention.”
“No.”
“If you don’t take action he could fatally harm you.”
“It was an accident. I banged my ankle on the edge of the coffee table.”
“You didn’t, Michael, and I won’t support your denial. Your three-and-a-half-year-old son got out of the crib you still keep him tied down in, found the toolbox, brought in the ball peen hammer, and smashed your ankle as you slept in one of those fitful twenty-minute naps you try your best to sneak when you can. He wanted to hear the sound of crunching Kit Kats, he’d said.”
“It’s not true!”
“It is,” Dr. Kalman insisted. “And you’re going to have to face up to—”
The door burst open and Georgie Summers darted into the room, screaming at the top of his lungs, hands flailing before his chest as if he’d just scorched himself. He was wearing a neck brace and halo because he’d so liked the dizzying feeling that accompanied a constant violent shaking of his head, the doctors had feared he would suffer from brain-bruise and whiplash. He had a mouth guard that was fastened all the way around his skull, because he’d lacerated his tongue licking the splintered back yard fencing and had torn his lips to ribbons from the constant biting and sucking that he claimed tasted like Red Hots and pennies. Inside his mouth he was missing his right front incisor, surgically removed from his nasal cavity after he’d purposefully run straight into the edge of a sawhorse the landlord had set up in the kitchen to cut a board while he was fixing a leak under the sink. Georgie had claimed that when he bit down hard it tasted like the almond extract he’d stolen from the cupboard a week ago, and if Daddy wouldn’t give him another bottle, he was going to make his own juice. Mike had told the emergency room doctor that his son had tripped over a kickball and hit the corner of a playground slide.
Margaret hurried in after the boy, her hair loose on one side.
“I’m so sorry, Doctor, but it’s not in my job description . . .”
They were all on their feet now, Dr. Kalman frowning, hands in his blazer pockets. Mike Summers limped after his son, walking cast making clumping sounds on the floor. His eyes were reddened at the rims and his face sagged with grief.
Georgie had gone flat on his stomach and was banging his mouth guard against the crown floor molding, screeching incoherently.
Margaret’s hands fluttered up to her face like frightened birds.
“Dear God, make him stop. He’s trying to lick the outlets.”
Mike Summers was on the floor now wrestling with his son from behind, looking up at his doctor, trying his best to avoid the meaty little fists flailing back at his face.
“There’s got to be a reason,” he said. “There’s got to be.”
Georgie started banging his forehead against the wall. Mike assumed the restraining position they’d taught him at the Children’s Hospital, arms over arms, the body beneath him writhing in spasm, and he pressed his lips to the side of the headgear, as near as was possible to his son’s sweaty temple.
“Buttercups,” he whispered tenderly in his son’s ear.
“Buttercups Georgie, I know . . . Daddy knows. You think the outlets are white chocolate buttercups.”
The Patter of Tiny Feet
Richard Gavin
Against his better judgment Sam stopped the car and allowed his smartphone to connect with Andrea’s. The earpiece purled enough times to allow him to envision Andrea sitting smugly cross-armed, eyeing her vibrating phone, ignoring his extension of the olive branch. Choking back the indignation he still believed was truly righteous, Sam obeyed the recorded instructions and waited for the tone.
“Hi, it’s me,” he began, trying not to be distracted by the escarpment’s belittling sprawl of glacial rock and ancient forests. “Look, I’m sorry I stormed out like that. It was childish of me, I admit. I’m happy about your promotion, I truly am, it’s just . . . well . . . I suppose I was a little shocked by how much your new position alters our plans.” He was lecturing again. Andrea had accused him of it often enough. Was he also being high-handed, as she liked to claim? “Anyhow, I really do have some scouting to do, that wasn’t a lie. But I wanted to call you before I got too far out and lost the signal. I’ve got my equipment in the car with me. I’m going to snap a few locations just to get Dennis off my back. I should be home in a few hours, so hopefully we can talk more then. Don’t worry, I’m not going to try and get you to change your mind about any- thing. I . . . I guess I just need to know that a family’s not completely off the table for us. It doesn’t have to be tomorrow, but at some point in the not too distant future I’d . . .”
He could feel himself babbling. Already his first few statements had grown hazy; he winced at their possible fawning stupidity. “I’ll see you when I get home. Love you lots.”
The jeep that was scaling the mountain behind him gave Sam an unpleasant start when he spotted its swelling reflection in his rearview mirror. The deafening beat of its stereo, no doubt worth more than the vehicle itself, caused the poorly folded maps on Sam’s dashboard to hum and vibrate as though they were maimed birds attempting to flap their crumpled wings.
The jeep rumbled past and the girl in its passenger seat was whooping and laughing a shrill musical laugh that Sam half believed was directed at him. He started his engine and cautiously veered back onto Appleby Line to resume his halfhearted search for a paragon of terror.
He’d not been lying about the mounting pressure from Dennis, a director who possessed the eccentricities and ego of many legendary cineastes, but completely lacked their genius. After helming two disastrous made-for-television teen comedies Dennis broke off to form his own miniscule film production company, Startling Image. Freak luck had furnished his operation with a grant from the Ontario Film Board, which Dennis said he planned to stretch as far as it could go. His scheme was to produce shoestring-budget horror films that would be released directly to DVD. Dennis believed this plot was not only foolproof but in fact an expressway to wealth and industry prestige.
Although Sam’s experience in moviemaking allowed him to see the
idiocy of Dennis’s delusions, being a freelancer required Sam to accept any jobs that came his way during leaner times. Location Manager was an impressive title on paper, but with anorexic productions such as Gnawers, Startling Image’s inaugural zombie infestation film, Sam found himself working twice as hard for a third of his usual compensation. He was contracted for a major Hollywood studio film that was going into production in Toronto next spring and had only accepted Dennis’s offer in order to bring in some extra money. The draconian hours, the director’s tantrums, and the risible script for Gnawers would have all been worth it had Andrea kept her word.
But now it seemed there would be no need to furnish their guest bedroom with a crib and rocking chair and a chiming mobile on the ceiling. Instead, there would only be Andrea’s customary seven-day workweeks, her quarterly bonuses spent on ever-sleeker gadgets and more luxurious clothing. Sam’s wants were simple: to know the pleasures of progeny, fatherhood, to watch someone born of love and blessed with love growing up and sequentially awakening to all the wonders of life. His grandfather had advised Sam years ago that there comes a time in every man’s life when all he wants is to hear is the patter of tiny feet.
At thirty-eight Sam had come to appreciate the wisdom of the cliché, and also the cold sorrow of realizing that this natural desire might shrivel up unfulfilled. What then? Sunday afternoon cocktails with Andrea’s fellow brokers, with him chasing an endless string of movie gigs until, perhaps, he could found a company of his own?
Only when the car began to chug and lurch in an attempt to scale the road’s sudden incline did Sam realize he’d allowed his foot to ease off the gas pedal. He stomped down on it, and the asthmatic sounds the engine released made him wince. This far up the escarpment, well past the Rattlesnake Point Conservation Area, the road hosted surprise hairpin turns that required a driver’s full alertness. Sam shook the cobwebs from his head and willed his focus on the narrow road before him.
Had he not been so determined to exceed Dennis’s expectations, Sam might have let the sight pass by. But his determination to prove his worth, now not only to Dennis but also to Andrea, maybe even to himself as well, inspired Sam to edge the car onto the nearest thing the narrow lane had to a shoulder and exit his vehicle. He gathered his hip bag and, eyes fixated on the quirk in the landscape, began to climb the rocky wall that fed off the laneway.
The stiff pitch of a shingled roof was what had silently commanded his attention after a rather long and uneventful drive around the escarpment. It jutted up, all tar shingles and snugly carpentered beams, amidst the leafless knotty tree-line. As he climbed upward and then began to wriggle across the inhospitable terrain, Sam questioned the housetop’s reality. Had his anxious state conspired with his imagination to impress a structure where one should not be?
A few more cautious footsteps were all that was required to confirm the substance of his glimpse.
It was a wooden frame-house whose two stories might have sprouted stiffly from the overgrown rockery that ringed its base. Blatantly abandoned, Sam couldn’t help but note how the house’s battered walls, punctured roof, and boarded windows did not convey the usual faint melancholy or eeriness that most neglected homes do. Instead, there was an air of what might be called power. Sam wondered if the house had drawn strength from its solitude, become self-perpetuating, self-sufficient, like the mythical serpent that sustains itself by devouring its own tail.
The site was so tailored to his wishes that for a moment Sam almost believed in Providence. Lugging the film crew’s equipment up and along this incline would be arduous, but he was confident that it would be worth the extra effort. Given the anorexic budget for Gnawers, even Dennis could not balk at the richness of this location.
The place was almost fiendishly apt. They would have to bring generators here to power the equipment, and a survey of the house would be required to gauge its safety hazards, but it could work. More than work; it could shine.
As he entered the clearing where the farmhouse stood, Sam lifted his hands to frame his view in a crude approximation of a camera lens. Yet this simple gesture was enough to transform his roaming of the derelict grounds into a long and elaborate establishing shot. One by one he took in the set-pieces that may well have been left there just for him: the crumbling stone steps that led up to the empty doorframe, the rust-mangled shell of a tractor that slumped uselessly at the head of the gravel clearing, the wind-plucked barn whose arches resembled the fossilized wings of a prehistoric bird of prey. It was glorious, perfect.
Sam wished he had someone there to share it with. But surely Andrea would not draw as much pleasure from this as he did. Her interest in movies extended only as far as attending the local premieres of any productions Sam had worked on. Beyond that, Andrea’s world revolved around crunching numbers for her clients.
For a cold moment Sam imagined one day teaching his son or daughter the thrill of seeking out the special nooks of the world. For Sam, movies were secondary. Their presentation invariably paled against the sparkling wonder of discovering the richly atmospheric settings that often hide out from the rambling parade of progress: art deco bars, grand old theatres, rural churches, and countless other places like this very farm.
He fought back the wring of depression by freeing the camera from his hip-bag and beginning to snap photos of the potential set. Moving around to the rear of the house chilled Sam, even though the April sun was still pouring modest warmth on the terrain. Perhaps the sight of the high shuttered room unnerved him. Regardless, it would make an excellent shot in Gnawers. With this many possibilities Sam’s mind began to thrum with startling revisions that could be made to the script.
A wooden well sat at the edge of the property, mere inches from the untamed forest. Sam approached it, struck by just how crude it was. The surface of the well had not even been sanded. It still bore the mossy flaking bark of the tree from which it had been hewn. Sam might have mistaken it for the stump of a great evergreen had the mouth of the stout barrel not been secured with a large granite slab that was held in place by ancient-looking ropes. Or were they vines? Regardless, the well or cistern could have been part of the topography, for it did not look fashioned in any way, merely capped. It was as if a massive log had been shoved down into the mud. Its base was overgrown with weeds so sun-bleached they resembled nerves.
Sam frowned at the thought of how its water might taste. The house had no back door, so Sam hastened his way to the open doorframe that faced the incline, excited by the prospect of the house’s interior.
The forest had shared its debris with the main hall. The oiled floorboards were carpeted with broken boughs and leaves and dirt. Sam clicked several shots of the living room with its lone furnishing of a broken armchair, of the pantry that was lined with dusty preserves, of the kitchen with its dented woodstove.
To his mind he’d already collected more than ample proof that this location would suit the film, but just to cross every T: a few quick shots of the second story. After that he would go back home. He had a strange and sudden need to snuggle up to Andrea, in a well-lit room, with the world held at bay beyond locked doors.
Something in the way the main stairs creaked underfoot gave Sam pause. He came to question whether the house was truly abandoned after all. It must have been the echo of the groaning wood, but the sound managed to plant the idea that the upper floor was occupied.
“Hello?” he called, only scarcely aware of the fact that his hand had begun fishing one of the contracts for location use out of his hip-bag. Drawing some absurd sense of security from the legal papers in his fist, Sam scaled the steps, listening all the while for noises that never overpowered his own.
An investigation of the first two rooms revealed precious little beyond more dust, greater decay. Sam’s discovery of a dismantled crib in the front bedroom did summon a lump in his throat. Why should he be so moved by so banal an image— slatted wood stacked in a corner? No doubt becaus
e he and Andrea would likely never have to do the same in their home.
His emotions were running unbridled, a delayed response to his argument with Andrea. One last room and then home to see if his own desire for a family could be rescued or merely erode until his heart became as rotted and hollow as this house.
The final room sat behind a door that was either locked or merely stuck in a moisture-warped jamb. Amidst the gouges on its surface was a carving of a humanoid figure dancing upon what Sam assumed was intended to be a tomb. In place of a head the figure bore an insect with thin legs represented by jagged slashes in the door wood. Beneath this glyph the word SEPA had been scratched.
Sam wriggled the iron doorknob until frustration and mounting curiosity impelled him to wrench it, slamming his weight against the door itself.
If the owner had secured the door with a lock, it had snapped under Sam’s moderate force. Still, Sam allowed a quick pang of guilt to pass through and punish him for the damage he’d wrought. But really, who would ever discover it?
The window in the room was half-covered by planks, but poor workmanship did not allow the wood to block out the light or protect the grimy glass. A cursory glance led Sam to believe that this room has been used for storage, for there were more items here than in all the other rooms combined: a long table, a wall-mounted shelf upon which books and what looked to be little wooden toys or figurines had been set, even a thin cot mattress carpeting the far corner. Bulging black trash bags were heaped along the wall. Sam daringly peeked into one of the open hems, discovering a bundle of old clothing, men’s and women’s both, wadded up in a gender-bending tangle.
All the items in the room suddenly quilted themselves together in Sam’s mind, forming a larger picture that suggested the house was someone’s home. He felt his bones go as cold and stiff as pipes in midwinter. Fear had bolted him to the spot. He listened, cursing himself for lumbering through the house so brazenly, so noisily.