October

by Al Sarrantonio

  "You think that's funny?" Ole Jack was panting, face sweaty. "Answer me!"

  "Fuck you," Davey said. By whipping his head back, he was able to deflect partially the first slap.

  Quick blows with narration followed: "You—little— fucker—calling—me—that."

  Davey threw up an arm finally, warding off a blow. He struck his foster father smartly on the nose.

  "Jesus!" ole Jack said. He pulled his hands away from Davey, covered his nose.

  The Mouth appeared in the doorway. As Davey backed away, she took hold of him, yelling at ole Jack, "That's enough! Leave the boy alone!"

  "He broke my nose!" ole Jack screamed. He sat down heavily on Davey's bed, touched his nose tenderly. His hands were covered in blood.

  "Don't you—" The Mouth began.

  Ole Jack reached into his shirt pocket. He pulled out a bottle cap stamped GENESEE. "I found this in the backyard!" he whined accusingly. "The boy's been drinking. Ask him!" He rose menacingly, winced at the pain in his nose, sat down again, covered his nose with his hands. "Shit!"

  "Come with me," The Mouth said to Davey. She dropped her thin arm around his shoulder, drew him out of the room, glancing at her husband to make sure he hadn't risen from the bed.

  She brought Davey into the bathroom, closed and locked the door, put the toilet seat cover down, sat him on it, made him turn his face up toward the light.

  "He smacked you good," she said.

  Her own face was puffy, her hair stringy, a red mark turning black under one eye.

  "He's a bastard," Davey said.

  She paused in her ministrations, stared down at him. "He can't help it."

  "I hate him."

  She took a soiled washcloth from its rack next to the sink, ran cold water over it. She dabbed at the marks on his face, flinching. "You really popped him good," she said, smiling mischievously. "Good thing he already had his beer, or he'd be on us now. I bet he's asleep by now. If we're lucky, he'll forget about it in the morning."

  As she rubbed at a long bruise on his left temple, Davey held her hand away. "Why was that cop here?"

  "That?" she said dismissively. "The goddamned Reileys next door complained again. Said Jack wasn't taking care of the lawn. Property values. You think this was goddamned Society Hill."

  "That was all?"

  Her face showed surprise. "Why?" Her dim eyes held focus. "Have you done something?"

  "No," he said quickly. "I was just wondering."

  She rubbed a final time at a scratch under his eye, tossed the washcloth in the sink. "Come on," she said.

  She unlocked the bathroom door, opened it to look out. Tentatively, she went out into the hall and approached Davey's bedroom.

  Ole Jack was sprawled on Davey's bed, asleep. One hand lay protectively over his nose; a few spots of blood dotted the top sheet.

  "He'll be out all night," The Mouth said. "We'll be okay."

  Davey looked at ole Jack's prone form, said, "Bastard."

  After a dinner of Spaghetti-Os, with Ring-Dings for dessert, a glass of water for Davey, a half bottle of red table wine for The Mouth, she told him to go to sleep. She climbed the stairs to her bedroom, leaving Davey the couch in the living room and a frayed, dusty-blue afghan. He stripped to his shorts, left the television on, dozed off in front of it.

  Soon after, he was awakened. He tensed, thinking it was ole Jack descending.

  "Shhhh," The Mouth said. She knelt beside the couch. "It's uncomfortable down here. Come up to the big bed.”

  “No."

  "Fine," she said.

  She lifted the afghan, snuggled her small body up against his, groped into his shorts.

  "No!" Davey said. He pushed against her, dropped her off the couch.

  "It's okay, Davey," she whimpered. "It's okay." She tried to climb back next to him.

  He lashed out at her with his arm.

  "Stay away!"

  She sat back on the floor, looked helplessly around. "Davey—"

  "What the fuck is wrong with you?" Davey shouted. He got up, moved away from her, around the couch. "This isn't the way it's supposed to be! You people are sick!"

  He grabbed his clothes, clutched them to his chest, stumbled from the room. He saw her get up and follow him.

  "Stay away from me!"

  She stopped. He mounted the stairs two at a time, went into the bathroom, locked the door.

  He sat on the toilet seat cover, hands balled into his eyes, rocking. Finally, he let big, long sobs rise from inside, burst out.

  Later, when he had stopped crying, he dressed and went out into the hallway. The door to The Mouth's bedroom was closed.

  He went into his room, past the snoring form of ole Jack. There was an envelope in the back of his desk drawer, and he pulled it out, jamming it into his back pocket.

  He dismounted the stairs, found his jacket, put it on, and left the house.

  He walked through his old neighborhood, collar up, jacket zipped to his throat. After a while, he began to feel the chill of the night.

  There were fallen leaves pooled under the streetlights. His feet made them jump away as he walked through them. Many of the houses had Halloween decorations up, uncarved pumpkins on their stoops and porches.

  He remembered this street on Halloween when he was five years old. His mother had dressed him like a clown. They walked from house to house. He vaguely remembered the feel of his mother's hand covering his, keeping his hand warm. He remembered feeling vaguely cold through the clown costume.

  He remembered the porch lights. Every house had a carved pumpkin. One was so big it needed a table to rest on. Its eyes were cut like diamonds, its nose a triangle. Another pumpkin had a large O for a mouth, with teeth on the bottom, candle fire dancing inside.

  He remembered crying.

  "Davey, you okay?"

  He remembered his mother's face, brushing her combed hair back when she bent down to him. She smelled like perfume water. He remembered the yellow boxes of perfume water on her dressing table.

  He pointed at the O mouth of the pumpkin.

  "Oh, Davey," she said, hugging him.

  He shivered through his costume. "Like the fire burning up the children."

  "Who told you that story?" she asked.

  He began to cry.

  "The big kids?" she asked. "Did they tell you that?" He nodded against her.

  "Davey, that happened a long, long time ago. There's nothing for you to be afraid of."

  "They'll burn you up."

  "Oh, Davey!" She hugged him, held him away, looked into his eyes solemnly. "Nothing's going to happen to me."

  He looked at her, lip quivering.

  "Davey," she said, pulling him close to her again. "I promise, I'll always be here."

  "You promise?"

  "Yes, I promise . . ."

  But six years later she broke her promise, his mother and father were dead, and it was all gone, his childhood, his father, his mother, the fall of her hair, the smell of perfume water . . .

  He began to cry again. When he cleared his eyes, he found he had stopped in front of the house he had lived in. The shutters were no longer red, but in the dark, the house looked the same.

  His house.

  He tried to make himself stop crying. He wasn't supposed to act like this. He was sixteen, he was tough. But he couldn't stop. He felt himself bisected, an earlier self stuck here in this place, in this house, in happiness, faraway reality. If he had never had it, he knew he would not be missing it. He would get along, had learned to be tough. But he had had that other life, had known what it was like to be happy, and he wanted it back.

  Perfume water, her hand covering his, the long fingers cold . . .

  "It's not supposed to be like this!"

  He began to sob again. Only when the porch light went on in the house where he had lived, illuminating a door that had been painted red but was now a dull green, a different door to a different world—only when that light went on, throwing l
ight on the new real world, a circle of light on a pumpkin, drawn face, a round O with teeth for a mouth, did he wipe his palms into his eyes and run on.

  Deep in the night, he watched the moon swim up over him for company. On the edge of the park, where he thought he might sleep on one of the benches, he saw the outline of a patrol car just before he would have been seen. The lit end of a cigarette flared like a coal; he heard the cop cough and then spit.

  He circled out of the park, found himself eventually at the outskirts of town. If he reversed and walked east, he would come to the university. The grounds were patrolled by security, making it impossible for sleep.

  He walked on, grew tired, cut up away from the well-traveled road, crested the top of a hill, looking for a good place to rest. He followed the line of the ridge.

  A trim line of trees appeared in the moonlight before him. He was in one of the apple orchards that encircled New Polk like beads. He thought he knew this one. He climbed a low rock wall and suddenly was in the midst of trees. The tart-sweet smell of apples filled his nostrils. He could not walk without stepping on fruit. He searched for and finally found a relatively intact apple, eating it as he walked.

  As he reached the heart of the orchard, the moon was shadowed by a tree limb.

  Davey heard a sound.

  He stood still, listened.

  There it was—a low growl in the back of an animal's throat.

  The sound went away, then came again, close by—a throaty growl with an undercurrent of fright.

  Davey eyed the nearby ranks of trees, saw nothing. Slowly, Davey lowered himself to one knee. He clicked his tongue. "Here, boy. Come on, let's have a look." The growl came, followed by a tentative, hoarse bark. "Come on, boy."

  To Davey's right, the form of a large red setter walked out of tree shadow into moonlight. Davey let the dog study him, sniffing, moving its head from side to side.

  The dog huffed, more robustly.

  "Come here," Davey urged.

  The dog advanced. Davey cupped his hand. The dog nuzzled into it, sniffing and then licking, making a whining sound deep in its throat.

  "What's the matter? Somebody beat you?"

  Slowly, Davey went over the dog. He found no bruises, but discovered that the dog loved to be scratched behind the ears, deep into his coat.

  "You lost? Run away?"

  The dog had no collar or tags.

  "Road dog, right? Want to stick with me?"

  The dog huffed, nuzzled into his hand, up his arm. "Just one thing I've got to check."

  Davey continued through the trees. The dog lingered, made a mournful sound. Davey stopped, urged the dog forward, waited till it was at his side.

  Davey made his way through the last block of trees to the edge of the orchard.

  Where the trees ended, he stopped and looked down the hillside. The moon was high up, perfectly placed for seeing.

  The lights in the farmhouse below were lit. Davey was sure of his location now—Ben Meyer's orchard. He and Buddy had picked apples for Meyer once. The old man had a reputation as a loner and a grouch, but they had been treated just fine, and the old woman had doted on them.

  But this was not Ben Meyer in the yard. A tall man in shirt and suspenders was cleaning something in front of the porch. He was down on his hands and knees in the dirt. When he was finished, he went to the porch and began to scrub it. Then he brought his cleaning utensils into the house. Davey could make out the tall man's form moving around inside the screen door.

  "You're afraid of him?" Davey asked the dog.

  The dog whined, gave a low bark.

  Davey watched the man continue his work. After a while, the man came out of the house, went to the barn, then returned to the house. All the lights stayed on.

  "Okay, boy, let's go."

  Davey retreated deep into the orchard. He found a flat area, covered with leaves and grass, under a tree that filtered the moonlight. He cleared it of fallen apples. The dog sat on its haunches, tongue lolling, and watched him.

  He lay down, hands behind his head.

  "Come here, boy," he said.

  The dog growled.

  "What's the matter? Don't want to stay here?" In answer, the dog whined.

  Davey held his hand out. After a moment, the dog let him scratch it behind the ears, settling close by. "Tomorrow we'll go. Okay?"

  The dog let out a long breath that sounded like a sigh.

  As the lowering moon winked at Davey from behind a breeze-blown leaf, he went to dreams and was a boy again in his mother's perfumed embrace.

  9

  October 23rd

  Kevin was still amazed that things had worked out the way Sidney Weiss had promised. It had taken a bit longer than Weiss said it would—three weeks—but here he was back in his new office, waiting for his very first class to begin, with most of his books packed out of their boxes onto their shelves, and his cassette player unreeling a Brahms trio. Raymond Fillet had even come to apologize to him for what had happened—not graciously, but with enough humility to tell Kevin that college president John Groteman had, at least for the moment, put him in his place. Kevin would treasure the memory of Fillet's mock contrition.

  There was another memory he would not treasure, however. Several times he had tried to call Lydia to explain his behavior. Each time she had hung up on him. He thought of going back to Eileen Connel's house, but what would he do when he got there? In Lydia's eyes, there was no redemption possible; and to Eileen Connel, adrift in her own poor, diseased mind, what could he say? She did not even know him.

  Still, she knows.

  Guilt assaulted him, because, he knew, he would act just as he had, given the chance again.

  Was she really in love with me?

  As incredible as it might be, he was willing to believe it; but again, he knew that he would only use it against her if he saw her again.

  She knows, and she might remember.

  The thought tortured him, but he pushed it aside.

  There was only one way to redeem the guilt he felt over Eileen Connel, and that was to try to secure her place in American literature. Despite what she knew, despite the reasons for his obsession with her work, she deserved the recognition he was trying to gain her.

  The class bell rang, a loud, hollow ding!

  My God, already?

  He looked at his watch, discovered that it was time to teach his first class.

  Time for redemption, he thought, bringing a single book with him, held almost reverently.

  They were the usual allotment of students. There were seventeen of them, freshmen, mostly arts majors with a scattering of truly interested science and engineering students, as well as the one or two business-schoolers looking for an easy grade.

  Kevin entered purposefully. Someone had put a large, carved jack-o'-lantern on his desk, lit, facing him with its crooked, demonic grin.

  "May I ask whom to thank for this?" Kevin said, keeping his tone light, but authoritative.

  A hand went up from the back of the class.

  "Nick Backman, sir." Clean-cut, sweatered, a touch of arrogance. Backman smiled. "I thought you might appreciate it."

  "Well, Mr. Backman, I do. Especially—"

  "May I ask a question, sir?"

  "Of course, Mr. Backman."

  Backman held up a copy of Eileen Connel’s Season of Witches. "I've read this, and I just wanted to know if all that devil mumbo jumbo in it is real."

  The class laughed. Kevin grinned and said, "Well, Mr. Backman, I can't say it's real, but Eileen Connel does use it for thematic effect. We'll be discussing that, shortly."

  Kevin blew out the candle in the jack-o'-lantern and propped his own copy of Season of Witches in front of it so that it was clearly visible. He turned to the blackboard, finding a piece of white chalk.

  "I'm glad some of you have already bought and read Season of Witches in anticipation of my arrival," he said as he sketched. "The rest of you should do so immediately. I'm sorry
you were kept waiting. I understand that Mr. Steadman was discussing William Faulkner, and I promise to return to that worthy gentleman later in the semester. But for now . . ."

  He finished at the blackboard, turned, and said, "What you see behind me looks as if it belongs at a football rally or a wienie roast. It's a Druidic bonfire. For my money, it should have been on the cover of Season of Witches. But, such is life, you see a picture of what the publisher thought, without reading the book, was inside. It's a detail of a painting lifted from the Illustrated Shakespeare Library, the three hags from the play Macbeth. It has nothing to do with Season of Witches." He turned, tapped the sketch of the bonfire with his chalk. "This, however, does.

  "Season of Witches deals with the Celtic festival of Saman, the Celtic Lord of Death. Each October thirty-first, the evening before the Celtic New Year, the Druids, who were Celtic priests, honored Saman by building a huge bonfire from sacred oak branches, and by sacrificing animals, crops, and probably, humans. The book concerns a young Druid, eventually sacrificed to Saman, who comes to doubt and then fight Saman's domination of the Celts.

  "If you haven't figured it out by now, the festival of Saman, after some Roman and Christian tampering, eventually became what we call Halloween. And Saman became, of course—"

  Nick Backman had raised his hand. "Satan?" he said eagerly.

  "Correct, Mr. Backman. I see that you have read the book. But you must remember that in Season of Witches, Satan is not a supernatural being, but ultimately, a rather banal creature."

  Kevin lifted the copy of Season of Witches from his desk, held it up. "That, in sketchiest detail, is what this book, Eileen Connel's best, is about.

  "But that's not what makes it great.

  "Eileen Connel is, as you have discovered if you have read this novel, a great metaphorist. For what seems on cursory examination to be a straightforward story, is, in fact, a symbol for the battle of the human soul against loss of self-identity."

  Kevin pointed to the blackboard drawing. "The festival of Saman came in autumn, on the eve of winter. Winter was, for the Celts, the season of death—death of warmth, of sunlight, of crops. Days became cold, nights long, fields fallow. In Season of Witches, there is a concurrent bleak season of the human soul. To Eileen Connel, loss of self-identity is death. This is a recurring theme in Connel's work. Life is, to her, a search for self; and to her, the workings of the human heart and soul reflect this condition.