The Puppet Maker's Bones

by Alisa Tangredi

  “Have you ever been in love?” asked Pavel.

  Robert’s eyes widened, alarmed.

  “You know that is not possible for us. Are you saying you have?” asked Robert with concern. “You have never acted upon that desire in any of the houses for that sort of thing, I hope. Please say you have not?”

  Pavel shook his head and talked while eating his stew. “No. I am, however, familiar with the female form. Many of the costume fittings are in the workshop and the few actresses who have graced us with their talents have not been shy about changing their costumes in front of the puppet maker.”

  “My word. How very modern of them,” said Robert, clutching both hands to his heart in mock surprise.

  “I don’t think I stand out very much,” Pavel had never given it much thought, but the actors did seem to behave as if he was not in the room.

  Robert sat back and studied Pavel. “You are not much to look at,” he said.

  Pavel smirked. “It has been a blessing that I am not. No one notices the plain puppet maker in the workshop who has never left. On stage, I am nothing more than a voice behind a puppet.”

  Robert got up from his seat and stretched his arms above his head and walked around the small space that would be his temporary residence. He picked up objects and put them back down, perused a stack of books on a table, touched the fabric on one of the chairs. He eyed the walls where a few paintings hung that Pavel had acquired over time.

  “You never travelled? Got the wanderlust to see the world?”

  “No. I read books.” Pavel indicated the stack of books Robert had examined.

  “I look at the pictures and drawings. I acquire art. I use the library at Mr. Trope’s office—he has quite a collection of books. You did say you are familiar with Mr. Trope—did you see him when you arrived here?” Pavel asked.

  “Indeed I did,” said Robert.

  “You were in Trope’s offices in America?” Pavel asked.

  “Indeed I was. They were most helpful after a rather awful situation I found myself in.” Robert’s expression grew serious.

  So McGovern was telling the truth when he said he and Peters were traveling to New York to work in one of the other offices.

  “I had heard they had offices there. I suppose I did not believe they existed.”

  Robert studied Pavel, again, his expression changing from concern to alarm. “I think perhaps you may have been a bit too sheltered for one of our kind, my dear.”

  Pavel shrugged. “I study. I have even managed to learn a few words of some of the different languages.”

  “So, in addition to being rather plain to look at, you are a rather boring fellow as well,” said Robert.

  “I suppose I am. But I am comfortable,” Pavel answered. He changed the subject. “May I ask about your scars?”

  “Which ones?”

  “I’m sorry. The ones across your back are horrible. Did they happen in your country?”

  “If you mean, did they happen in America, yes.”

  Pavel continued with his questioning. He had never met anyone who was from anywhere so far away. “America is quite different, isn’t it?”

  “An understatement.”

  “It wasn’t because you are—”

  “Oh, heavens no. I am an actor, my dear. I can act the part of the strong and masculine African if I must. No, I have never been persecuted for that, thank goodness. I hear the jail cells for that sort of thing in America are quite uncomfortable. No, I assure you, my scars were acquired during the beginning of the American Civil war. I had the bright idea to go release my indignation upon the ranks of the Confederacy.”

  “I’m sorry. The Americans did that?”

  “Has Trope taught you nothing? We are not people who can simply go out and release our anger upon the world when we feel so moved. There are consequences. Punishments.” Robert moved to the kitchen hutch where there was another bottle of wine and he opened it, found two glasses and poured for himself and his new friend. Pavel looked at his hands and averted his gaze from Robert. He was frightened and unsure of what to say or ask next.

  “People who worked for Mr. Trope… extracted me from my commission in the army and I was brought before a committee. My sentence was one lash for every year I had been alive. And one lash for…” Mr. Lamb did not finish the sentence.

  Pavel drained his glass and poured another.

  “Don’t look so stricken. Not your fault, my dear. I’m sure you would have had the desire to fight for the right side if you had been there. Such injustice. You look a bit on the young side, but they would have taken anyone, I’m sure. But it was wrong. What I did was wrong.”

  Pavel attempted to make sense of what Robert was telling him. Years of living in the same town, in the same culture, with a limited worldview, despite making weekly trips to the offices of Trope & Co. to collect the mountain of books he had read over time, had never given him any indication of the existence of the world Robert was describing, or any world outside his own, for that matter. Their world. The world of Pavel and Robert and the people who worked for Trope and all the others living in the world who might be like Pavel had consequences and beatings.

  Robert continued. “I made my way to Europe as quickly as I could find passage. Showed up on the doorstep of a theatre in France and stayed for a bit before moving on. But you weren’t asking about that, were you? As for the other scars, the ones on my shoulders… my family died when I was young from the plague or the wasting sickness, or something. My mother died giving birth to me.”

  “That is exactly what happened with me,” said Pavel. “They used to tell me that I killed them all.”

  Robert challenged Pavel. “Did you?”

  “What?”

  Robert shook his head. “It angers me, how little you have been educated. I must have a word with Mr. Trope when I go into town. Of course you killed them!”

  The color drained from Pavel’s face and he stood up, the chair falling over as he did so. He swayed a little on his feet, the alcohol hitting him.

  “My dear, I refuse to believe you have been given no instruction on our… abilities. Trope, miserable man that he is, would not be that irresponsible.”

  Pavel debated on what to say to Robert next. Pavel acknowledged at that moment that his trust of anyone associated with Leonard Trope was quite limited, though his new friend seemed to trust Trope quite completely.

  “I did not wish to believe it. There is much that Trope has said to me over the years that I have difficulty with.” Pavel continued to sway a bit on his feet but managed to lean over and pick up the chair he had knocked down. He set it down with the deliberate care of one who has had too much to drink and wishes to appear sober. When the chair was returned to its standing position, he again sat. Robert continued talking, though Pavel was experiencing a swirling in his ears, fear and adrenalin coursing through him. Could Mr. Trope have been telling him the truth all this time? He thought Trope made up all the ridiculous rules to scare him and to scare Prochazka and Nina. He had no idea why someone would do that, but he was such a horrible man. Pavel always assumed he was a liar. He thought they were all liars. Why did he decide that? The swirling in his ears let up and he concentrated on what Robert was telling him.

  Robert took Pavel’s hand and held it with both of his own. “My dear man, we cannot afford to ignore anything Trope says to us. Adopting the idea that he is being disingenuous with you is dangerous, not only to you but to everyone around you.”

  “I have difficulty imagining that there are that many of us to keep an eye on.”

  Robert sighed before answering. “I should think there are, though as I said, I do hope not. The world is a big place. It seems that if a handful of us are born in each place that exists, then there are more than quite a few by now.”

  “Then we can have children?”

  “What? I am about to become quite angry with you, Pavel, for I think you are toying with me, pretending to be ignorant. Or worse
, you are in some sort of egregious denial. No. We can’t. Of course we can’t. I was referring to the accident of our birth into the families unlucky enough to receive us.”

  “What did they tell you about the scars and what caused them?” Pavel asked again.

  Robert regarded Pavel before answering.

  “I believe I should be asking you that question, since it appears you have chosen to forget all your lessons. Whoever told you that you are immature appears to be quite correct in that assessment.”

  Pavel examined the nail beds of his fingers, as if some answer might be found there that was alluding him. His memory problem plagued him again. What had McGovern taught him? What had his parents also taught him? Breathe. The years he had spent alone with only superficial interaction with the various theatre people coming in and out of the theatre and wandering backstage during a show had, despite their presence, exacerbated a certain madness or denial in Pavel born of his extreme loneliness. The idea that he was some sort of angel of death, for want of a better term, was an unacceptable concept, a scientific impossibility. It could not be true. None of it could be true. He avoided the focused stare of his new friend.

  “I am an escaped puppet,” said Pavel. “Someone cut my strings and I ran away until I made my way home.”

  The two men sat across the table from each other without speaking for what seemed to be hours. Pavel finally broke the silence.

  “The matter of Mr. Cerny—” Pavel said.

  “Oh, heavens. We will go to Mr. Trope in the morning and ask him to find a theatre that plans to do Hamlet and have them send a commission for Mr. Cerny. He’ll run at the chance and forget all about me, us, the little puppet theatre in Prague, the moment he utters his first ‘To be or not to be.’ Don’t you agree?” Pavel considered his proposal.

  “I need to have a word with Mr. Trope about quite a few things,” said Robert. “It will be all right, Pavel. Don’t worry. You have a friend in me. You have a friend. It appears you need one. Very much.”

  “It is hard to have secrets,” Pavel said.

  Robert shook his head and walked into the bedroom, shutting the door behind him.

  ***

  After shutting the door to his new living arrangement, and leaving his new friend sitting in the kitchen, Robert put both hands to his face and stifled a sob. He could not speak to him any more tonight. The memories were so recent and still so hideous. They gave the man nightmares. How could his new friend be so ignorant regarding the most dangerous element inherent to their kind? Did Pavel really have no idea what they were designed to do on this Earth?

  “Remember Fort Pillow!” He remembered the battle cry that died in his throat as he yelled it. He had been so filled with anger, so filled with rage. A huge roar came out of his throat that seemed to emanate from the very core of his being, then exploded outward. Running, hitting, shooting, stabbing, then more running. His blood burned—his eyes saw red—but it wasn’t the blood of his comrades or the Confederate soldiers they had attacked in retaliation. He stopped only when he realized that he was the only person standing. His eyes cleared of their rage and he saw it. A spiral of death that started at his feet and spread in a circular fashion away from him like a great, round tapestry woven of bodies spread as far as the eye could see, bathed in their own blood. Blood had gushed from noses, ears, and eyes. So much blood—a deep red mixed with an even greater amount of fluid that was more violet in color, then a clear liquid, like water—continued to run from every orifice. White soldiers so pale, their veins stood out in blue relief against translucent skin. Black soldiers a sickening pale, gray, chalky color, the whites of their open eyes a horrific shade of pale blue. Everyone was dead or dying. Not only the enemy they were there to challenge, but Robert’s fellows. Everyone. Robert stood alone, terrified. He fell to his knees and retched until he thought his ribs would break. Eighteen years ago. That eighteen years amounted to what seemed no more than a minute in Robert’s lifetime.

  Robert had been in Tennessee. The Civil War raged, and Robert became inflamed with anger upon learning of one senseless, bloody, and brutal incident. Fort Pillow. April 12, 1864. Robert felt a primal need to do something. Confederate Major General Nathan Bedford Forrest had attacked the fort with a cavalry division of approximately 2,500 men. Out of 262 colored troops in the Union garrison at Fort Pillow, only 62 survived. The massacre was believed to be a deliberate slaughter of colored troops. Robert joined one of a few units of black soldiers retaliating against Confederates for the massacre. The adopted avenging battle cry was, “Remember Fort Pillow!”

  Robert had been warned, schooled about who and what he was and the importance of his emotions being kept under control, that his passions could not be allowed to best him. His sense of injustice in this instance overwhelmed him to the point that his dominant nature took hold and he became that thing that people like Mr. Trope worked so hard to ensure against. Robert Lamb became an angel of death that day.

  Later, he was brought before a committee of his peers, who chose to spare his life and spread a vague story of him surviving the battle and deserting that day. Robert was relocated immediately to Europe. The lashes on his back were a reminder. One for every year of his life and one for each person who died on the battlefield that day. Robert would never again doubt the power available to him if he ever went out of control again.

  ***

  Pavel listened to the muffled sobs coming from behind the door of Robert’s room. He did not move from the table. He sat, wide-eyed, all night, and only got up to retreat to his cot in the workshop as the sun began to rise.

  Kevin: Present Day

  Kevin wandered through the bike shop and glanced at various objects without focusing on any of them with any degree of interest. He was busy watching the boy in the black t-shirt with the anarchy symbol—a white circle with an exaggerated upper case A in the middle. The boy wore a wool beanie over dyed black hair, black skinny jeans slung low over his hips, black high-top athletic shoes and a backpack to finish off the look. He matched the appearance of a thousand other boys in the area. Kevin marveled at the way his peers claimed to dress to express their individuality, and yet they managed to look like everyone else with the same idea. What they wanted was to conform, to fit in, to blend in so as not to be noticed. Getting noticed might result in someone stronger beating the shit out of them. The thinking went something like that, Kevin knew. Kevin had dressed the part before coming to the shop, and was wearing almost identical clothing except Kevin’s t-shirt was plain black. He had an extra change of identical clothing in his own backpack. The uniform reminded Kevin of the house he had visited and the family inside. Everything identical. Everything conforming. Kevin found something offensive about anything that celebrated such ordinary sameness. The uniform was close enough that if anyone asked later, no one would be able to distinguish which boy was which and who followed whom. Did they arrive or leave together? No one would know or remember because “all those kids look alike to me.” Kevin had heard it a thousand times.

  “I told you, it’s over here!” said Kevin. He turned to the teenage boy who’d followed him from the bike shop on Saticoy to Reseda Boulevard, deep in the San Fernando Valley. The bike shop had wheel replacements for Kevin’s skateboard, and though plenty of other shops closer to Kevin’s home had what he needed, Kevin wanted to have a little fun and preferred to venture out of the neighborhood. Kevin put his skateboard on the ground, pulled on a pair of gloves that had built-in wrist guards, hopped on the skateboard and rode down the street. The gullible boy followed him on his bike, lured by the promise of a bag of pot.

  “I stole it from my uncle,” Kevin told the boy. “It’s medical, so it’s really strong. He’s got PTSD or some shit like that, so that’s why he has it. Anyway, I got some and stashed it under the bridge on Reseda Boulevard.” They were near the bridge overlooking the Los Angeles River, a meandering concrete channel that started in the San Fernando Valley and ran for about forty-eight miles thr
ough various parts of the Los Angeles basin. Often empty or near empty, the channel served as a camp for homeless people who set up shelters under the various bridges and overpasses that ran the length of the river. The riverbed was also a good place to hide things.

  Kevin hopped off his skateboard, vaulted over the concrete railing and onto the ground on the other side. He worked his way down the embankment to an area far underneath the bridge. “C’mon!” he called to the kid. What had he said his name was? Josh? Ian? Some generic name for a generic boy. The boy got off his bike.

  “What about my bike?” the boy called.

  “Shit, you’re right.” Did he have to make it so easy? Kevin went back up to the concrete railing. “Here, hand it over the railing to me. We’ll hide it here.” The boy hoisted the bike over the railing to Kevin, who leaned it against the concrete on the other side, making it invisible from the boulevard.

  They moved together down the embankment and under the bridge. Kevin did another quick look around to see if the area was occupied. All clear. No blankets, lean-to tents or large boxes that might serve to hide someone choosing to camp in that location. Kevin led the way to the seam between bridge and channel at the topmost part of the embankment. Dirt and weeds came through the concrete where part of the channel had broken up over time.

  “Right here. Kevin started digging around in an area of dirt. The boy kneeled next to him. “Can you hand me that hunk of concrete right there? No, the bigger one.” The boy handed Kevin a hunk of concrete. He did not even ask Kevin what he meant to do with it. Kevin took the hunk of concrete and smashed it full into the boy’s face. After the boy fell to the ground, Kevin continued to smash the boy’s face and head until the boy would never move again. Kevin stripped off his clothes until he stood naked under the bridge and proceeded to turn his soiled clothes inside out, using the inside of the shirt and jeans to wipe off his face, arms and hair. He took the extra change of clothing out of his backpack and put them on. When he was cleaned off and dressed, Kevin sauntered back to the concrete railing. He glanced once at the bike as he picked up his skateboard, hopped back over the railing and took off down the street where he would catch the bus back to his own part of town. Behind him lay the remains of the generic teenage boy who would be found eventually, though it was probable the first discovery would be made by coyotes. Kevin skated for a few blocks and deposited his backpack with the bloody clothing into a trash bin near a bus stop. He kept the other backpack that had belonged to the boy. No one would look in the trash. Kevin knew this area. He knew that bus stop. People threw the most disgusting things in that trash bin. Baggies of dog poop, diapers changed at the bus stop, human filth of every variety. Confident, Kevin remained at that very bus stop waiting for the arrival of the next bus.