Fiends

by John Farris

  Marjory got up, red in the face, as Ted hastened from the Firebird to help her.

  "Hurt yourself?"

  "No." She kicked off the shoe with the broken heel and balanced on one foot so as not to list. Some high clouds blocked the sun but the day was still a humid dazzler, and she already felt as if she had been spritzed with a garden hose.

  Enid picked that moment to arrive with their other dinner guest.

  "What happened?"

  "Oh, I caught my heel and it snapped off."

  "Looks like you've got a little grass smudge on your dress."

  "I'll bleach it out."

  "I've probably got a pair of shoes you can squeeze into; poke around in my closet."

  Marjory took the other shoe off, and looked into the eyes of Arne Horsfall, who was standing a couple of feet behind Enid with a sketchbook under one arm.

  He was a lot bigger than she'd assumed he would be. Even with a pronounced stoop he was half a head taller than Ted, who went six one and a half. There was more tangly white hair growing out of Arne's ears I ban he had on his skull. His features had retreated to the bone; where there was flesh it was deeply scored. He was thin, nearly gaunt. He did not give the impression of being frail but he had a strange, hung-together look, as if he had been composed from the ill-matched bones of others. The new clothes Enid had bought him fitted okay, but they didn't suit him. He might have looked better dressed all in black. He was so quiet and somber he seemed barely alive.

  Marjory had become accustomed, in her brief tour of Cumberland State, to inmates who were quenched and passionless, and others with clownish, synthetic personalities, all side effects of psychoactive drugs as powerful as rocket fuel. Arne Horsfall was a different case. He looked like a migraine felt, but he had the power to hold her attention. She had a sensation of excitement, of discovery—someone lived there, all right, behind the small, dark eyes. He was distant, but not subdued in some dire, brainwashed manner. It was as if he had learned long ago to turn most people away with the rigid cast of his face, a bloodless indifference. The better to study them, as he now studied her.

  "Marjory, Ted—I'd like for you to meet Mr. Horsfall, one of my very talented students."

  Ted reached around Enid with his right hand. Arne Horsfall looked at it noncommittally for several seconds, as if no one had offered to shake his hand before. Then he took it, gingerly, with a glance at Ted but no change of expression. Marjory kept her distance and smiled, with a little flickering wave of welcome; she just couldn't bring herself to touch him, that long yellow hand with brown spots like motor oil stains, and gruesome black veins.

  After eyeing Ted, Arne Horsfall looked, long and searchingly, at the house. The sun came out and his eyes narrowed, he hunched his shoulders as if he found so much light punishing.

  "Well, why don't we all go inside?" Enid suggested. "It was a long drive, and I'm sure Mr. Horsfall is perishing for a drink of something sweet and cold—”

  Marjory observed that whenever Enid spoke, Arne Horsfall gave her his full attention, listening as if to an oracle, a saint of his realm—Marjory could have died, but, abruptly, she had a change of heart and thought, What of it? He was a man, after all, and any man no matter how aged who didn't fall in love with Enid after spending a little time with her was, well, out of his mind. Reassured by that revelation of humanness, she began to feel a little better about Arne Horsfall, not so unhappy to have him around.

  Enid slipped an arm gracefully inside Mr. Horsfall's and Ted smiled as if he were really looking forward to an afternoon of talking hunting and fishing with their guest. They all went into the house by the front door.

  In the kitchen Marjory looked again at the golden hen in the oven, then set out a pitcher of lemonade and glasses on the heirloom silver tray they had been tempted to sell when funds were critically low. But selling the few handed-down treasures her mother had loved seemed a betrayal. Ada May Waller had never been one to put on airs, but she was a genealogy buff who knew intimately every sprig of a family tree that included persons of quality in Scotland and England. Enid had her mother's inbred sense of style and propriety. Marjory sometimes joked about herself that she looked like the family cleric who had been fond of charbroiling heretics; but the joke could be painful.

  She carried the tray with the lemonade into the parlor, where daylong light filtered through the oak tree that, like a big green cumulus cloud, sheltered nearly the full front of their clapboard house.

  Arne Horsfall, still clutching his sketchbook under one arm, was touring the walls of the parlor, where many portraits and photographs of forebears—men and women anciently composed in too much clothing and with their hair parted down the middle—had been hanging since before Enid was born. He seemed momentarily fascinated by a stuffed red squirrel, up on its hind legs and with forepaws spread in a menacing way, as if it had grizzly genes. Marjory reckoned that it might become tedious talking to a man who couldn't respond, although Enid didn't seem fazed. She could talk on and on about things that would bore most people to tears, yet Enid was never boring because her voice, her natural cadences, were so pleasing that words didn't matter. Ted watched her as if he truly appreciated how lucky he was.

  Marjory placed the tray on a table in front of one of the rigorously uncomfortable horsehair sofas and poured lemonade.

  "Anything interesting happening in your life?"

  Ted replied in a low voice, "Well, I was shot at last night."

  "What? You're kidding!" Thrilled and apprehensive, Marjory inspected him quickly for damages. Ted shrugged. "They missed, huh? What happened?"

  "Oh, it was about nine o'clock over on Deacon's Mill Road. A car was in the ditch and the wrecker was there. Traffic was moving okay. I never heard the shot, but it busted one of my reds to smithereens. I was standing a couple of feet away. Couldn't identify where the shot came from, or who fired it. Probably some yahoo in a pickup who got a speeding ticket last week, and wanted to take it out on me."

  "That must have given you the runs."

  Ted shrugged again, a little proud of his grit under fire. "Nah. Those things happen. Listen, maybe you better not say anything to Enid—you know how she is."

  "Hey, Enid, have I got news for you!"

  Enid turned, smiling. "What?"

  Ted said quickly, "Thought you all might like to catch Bob Dylan at the Parthenon next weekend."

  "Wonderful."

  Marjory handed up two glasses of lemonade. Ted sat back on the sofa, looking painfully amused. "Anything else I can do, Marjory?"

  Marjory, wide-eyed, shook her head. "Oh, no, Ted. Bob Dylan sounds terrific. And it's so thoughtful to invite me. I just never seem to go anywhere lately."

  Arne Horsfall sat on the edge of a Queen Anne chair with his sketchbook in his lap. He sipped lemonade and, for the most part, looked at Enid. The ceiling fan shuddered annoyingly but kept them cool. Ted commented, as he usually did, "I need to fix that thing the next time I'm over." Enid talked about the art class she conducted at Cumberland State, and the surprising number of her students who were doing original and interesting work. Presently Arne Horsfall's eyes closed and he appeared to fall asleep sitting up in the chair.

  "Poor man," Enid murmured. She got up to gently remove the lemonade glass from his hand. His nearly lashless eyelids fluttered, then his head tilted forward another inch and they heard him snore. "But I think he's doing real well. You know, he hasn't been anywhere in donkey's years. I could just tell he was terrified in the car, all those huge trucks thundering by on the Interstate. He never shut his eyes once, though; he was so busy taking everything in. That tires out your brain if you're not accustomed to it."

  "Enid, I think the chicken's about done. Should we wake him up?"

  Arne Horsfall woke himself up, with a rasping snore that caused his eyes to open and his head to jerk sideways. Ted started off the sofa to keep their guest from toppling out of his chair. But Arne righted himself, then looked around uncomprehendingly, the wispy
white hair clinging to the back of his head stirred by the fan paddles over them. He needed to clear his throat, which he did but with great difficulty. Marjory tried to dig her fingers into the hard, slick horsehair. Then, as if he were attracted by the cooking odors, Arne rose in the manner of stiff, old men—lurching half erect, then pausing, suspensefully, before lurching all the way up—and made his way back to the sunny kitchen. Enid, then Marjory followed.

  After looking around in his rapt, obsessive manner, he moved circuitously to the screen door where he stared out at the backyard and the heat haze over the glum green surface of Crudup's pond, blinking, his eyes watering. Finally he turned to Enid as Marjory opened the oven door and brought out the roasted chicken. He began, using his hands, to silently converse with Enid, gesturing to the stove, tapping the side of his head with a long finger, always in motion like a symphony conductor hearing ghostly music, cajoling invisible instruments.

  "Stove . . . this kitchen . . ." Arne nodded vigorously, and Marjory wondered how his skinny neck could stand the strain. "Reminds you . . . of where you used to live, do I have that right?" Arne nodded again, also tapping his foot in an excess of nervous release. "How long ago was that, Mr. Horsfall?" He put his hand, palm down, near his waist. Enid frowned, trying to interpret the message. "Oh! When you were a boy? I see. Where? Do you remember?" Arne shook his head this time, but gazed out again through the screen, extending a hand from the level of his brow. Marjory thought of Cochise in the movies, communicating sternly with the white-eyes. Maybe Arne Horsfall had seen the same westerns she had. It was almost funny; but the way his lips worked, and the small amount of drool he was producing in his efforts to get them to understand, didn't impress her as amusing at all—she was a little sick to her stomach.

  "Were you raised on a farm?" Enid hazarded, "like Crudup's farm over there?" Arne now clasped his hands together, nodding, nodding, his sign language failing to keep pace with his thoughts, his memories. He made a steeple with his index fingers. "Church? Uh . . . your father was a preacher?" Arne shook his head. He glanced at the pots and pans hanging on racks beside the stove, took one down, ran his fingers over the copper bottom, made the sign of the steeple again. "The church you attended had a copper steeple?" Enid interpreted, her face pinked from excitement. Yes. She turned to Ted, who was standing behind her in the doorway idly swishing ice cubes in an inch of lemonade.

  "Didn't our old sanctuary have a copper-covered spire?"

  "Yeh . . . I think so. But it burned down, shoot, that was before I was a gleam in daddy's eye. Back about nineteen forty, forty-one."

  "You were born in Sublimity!" Enid said to Arne Horsfall.

  He shook off that conclusion, then spread his hands, turning toward the screen door as he did so.

  "But near here. Across the river? The Cumberland or the—Harpeth!— River . . . well! How about that? And your father was a farmer. Your mother—"

  Arne made a sudden move toward Marjory, who looked up, startled, and shied away as he touched the bob of her hair, blunt-cut like a paintbrush.

  "Your mother had blond hair like Marjory's and she was. . . tall, is that correct? We're getting to know quite a bit about you now, aren't we? Did you have brothers and sisters? Oh, you didn't. I wonder what else you have to tell us, this is so interesting—"

  "Enid, I think I'd better carve the chicken."

  "I'll do that for you, Marjory," Ted offered.

  "Thanks. I just need to go up to my room for a minute; be right back, why don't you put everything on the table."

  Shoeless, Marjory hustled up the stairs in her stockings and closed the bathroom door. She splashed cold water in her face (it came from their own deep artesian well and was always bitingly cold, even at the height of summer), which got rid of the nausea that had suddenly come over her, but she was still a little shocked and chilled at the heart because of the way Arne Horsfall had lunged at her. Maybe Enid thought he was okay because lie could draw, a harmless old cuckoo at worst; but Marjory had her own opinion: solid instinct told her something was dangerously not right—more than memories were dammed up in Arne Horsfall, there was some dreadful passion that might come bursting forth at any time. She didn't want to be around when it happened.

  Marjory decided to take off her panty girdle because she knew how uncomfortable she was going to be while sitting down and trying to eat, although at this point she had no appetite—smelling the plump roaster simmering with onions, carrots, and celery in fatty juices had contributed, along with tension and the heat of the kitchen, to her nausea. She needed to remove her dress to get shed of the onerous girdle. When she put the dress back on it was damp in several places, and so tight it was a good bet to tear if she didn't carefully consider every move she made. Tears filled the corners of her eyes and dribbled hotly down beside her nose; her chin trembled as she heard Enid calling from the foot of the stairs. With a washcloth she mopped her face (in the bleary scheme of the bathroom mirror such a ringer for her father's broad, likable, slightly fishy face, eyes an almost incandescent, illimitable blue) until her chin was steadier. Then she went slowly down to the dining room, still without shoes, and, with wide bars of shadow from the stair railing across her white dress, looking like a canceled bride.

  Arne Horsfall had calmed down and was contemplating the slices of steaming chicken breast Enid loaded on his plate. But he glanced at Marjory as she took her place at the table and she felt the turmoil beginning again, like a bad gas pain below her heart. It was as if he sensed her fear and dislike of him, which somehow focused everything that was dark and unsettled in his personality on her. Ted had had experiences with all kinds of weirdos (of which Caskey County could claim more than its share); why couldn't he see that all of Arne's dogs weren't barking? But Ted was heaping squash with sweet peppers and au gratin potatoes on his own plate and chatting amiably about the good fishing to be found up around Paris Landing. Marjory settled into a dismal silence and, during the blessing that Enid asked, prayed contrapuntally that the day would come to an end without incident; she prayed Arne Horsfall would be returned to Cumberland State before the sun set on him. The silence she enforced on herself soon made her giddy, and she had fits of laughter about nothing much while trying desperately to avoid everyone's eyes. Enid studied her with a rocky forbearance and redoubled her efforts to make Arne Horsfall feel like one of their little family.

  7

  "Are you coming down with something, Marjory?" Enid asked her in the kitchen while they were doing the dishes. Ted had taken fishing tackle from the trunk of his car and gone down to the torpid green pond with Arne to see if any bream were biting in the afternoon heat.

  "Now that you mention it, I guess not."

  "You outdid yourself at the table. I mean, you haven't carried on like that since you were four years old. I was embarrassed for you."

  "I'm sorry," Marjory said grimly, and mishandled a plate Enid gave to her dripping from the rinse water. She caught it before it hit the floor.

  "Careful."

  Marjory sucked a breath and said, as if she'd been accused of going to the devil, "It was your fault; I never have broken a piece of mama's best china, and I never will!"

  "Oh, Marjory, hush, what is it with you today?"

  "Him," Marjory said, doing a quick, overly frenzied impression of Arne Horsfall's sign language.

  "I cannot believe you. Don't you have compassion for anyone but your own selfish person?"

  "That's not fair!"

  "Of course he acted nervous—to begin with. Don't you understand what a day like this means to him? To be accepted in our home, treated with kindness, afforded his dignity? That's the first thing they take away from you in an institution, Marjory, your dignity. And without it—do you see what I'm saying?"

  "Yeh," Marjory mumbled. "When's he going back?"

  "Tomorrow."

  "Oh, Enid, you don't mean—"

  "Yes, I do mean, he's staying the night, I've already arranged with—"

 
; "Enidddd," Marjory moaned, "that's the dumbest—"

  "Marjory Waller, shut up!" Enid said, in a tone of voice that Marjory hadn't heard for nearly two years. Marjory stared at her for several taut seconds, then turned and put the plate she'd been drying on the table, turned again and stalked out of the kitchen.

  "You'd better," Enid called after her, a little shrill from temper, "just stay in your room until you get ready to act right again! And while you're at it—" She had reached the kitchen door, the better to make herself heard as Marjory hit the top of the stairs with a resounding thump and went down the hall so fast she was getting nylon burns from the carpet runner, "—you might open your Bible and read—" Marjory slammed the door on this suggestion hard enough to loosen a little more of the plaster next to the jamb and jumped on her bed, not thinking about how careful she needed to be in her piqué dress. It opened at the seams like a dropped sack of flour.

  Marjory clubbed her fists into a pillow, expelling a few feathers that floated lazily in the hot slant of sun through open windows. Then she lay, rigidly, for a few minutes in a deepening bath of perspiration, studying the cracks in her ceiling, the shadowy shapes of expired insects in the milk glass of the lighting fixture. She heard Ted's voice from the pond. She felt awful, too wretched to cry. Not wrong, exactly, but guilty because she knew she ought to be outgrowing tantrums by now. After a while she got up and stripped soggily, blotted her breasts and shoulders with a corner of the nubby chenille bedspread, then pulled on shorts and a Grateful Dead T-shirt of a faded blue still dark enough to disguise the absence of a bra. She switched on the fan, which began swiveling its ugly old black head like a creature in a Godzilla movie, and fiddled with the antenna of the black-and-white TV set on the shelf of her armoire. There wasn't much to see this time of the afternoon but a gospel quartet—all of them wearing baggy silk suits and pompadours with bushy sideburns, none whom she would call cute—and The American Sportsman, with Curt Gowdy. Stalking bighorn sheep in Alaska was low on the list of things she hoped to do someday, ranking just ahead of communal farming in British Honduras, and autopsies.