When Michael Calls

by Farris, John

  Helen:

  As you can see from the telegram I have to go up to Platteville for a while. Swen and his wife practically raised me, it's all I can do. I'll catch the seven a.m. bus to Ft. Wood, from there I can fly to St. Louis and on to Dubuque, then drive the rest of the way. With luck I'll be back late tomorrow night. We had some excitement last night; Sheriff Mills will tell you about it if you give him a call.

  Don't worry.

  Doremus

  Helen shook her head at the cryptic Don't worry. She read the note again, and glanced at the telegram. UNCLE SWEN SERIOUSLY ILL CAN YOU COME LOVE MEDA. She frowned and went out into the foyer, wondering if it was too early to call Enoch Mills. Then she decided she didn't care what time it was, and hastily dialed his home number.

  The sun falling directly on the east window of her cubbyhole bedroom was like a candle flame held close to Amy's cheek. She stirred, coughed, awakened. Her eyes burned; she was not sure where she was until she saw the familiar flowered design of the spread piled up on the floor. She rolled over, her stomach lurching along a second later, falling into place like a stone. She had slept in soiled clothes, with a dirty face. She ached in a dozen vital places.

  Amy staggered up and regarded herself in the sunlit vanity mirror. Her face was a patchy red, one cheek deeply creased by the ribbed sweater she wore. Sunday, she thought. I look like I've been drunk. Played the part once. No good at it.

  It came to her then what was wrong with this bright Sunday morning, what was so odd and forbidding about it. Until a few hours ago her life had had solidity, continuity. Thank the sensible and loving parents for a good start. But she'd done all right on her own too—avoided the environmental traps that had already turned many women her age into coarse, shrill images of the almighty teenager. She'd taken bumps and lumps without whimpering and made good choices and seen the path to the best possible life open up; she knew where she was going. She had felt a little smug about it. Setbacks, sure, but despite them it didn't seem to be tough. Keep your sense of values. Know who you are. Rejoice in a pinch of luck now and then. The path is well marked.

  The path is cunningly mined, and it makes no difference who you are. The innocent and well-meaning get blown to bits right along with the wicked and amoral.

  Amy saw her mouth sag, fought the growing pressure of tears. She turned away quickly and stood, knees pressed together, in the middle of her sunny bedroom, toes in, trembling. She had lost all sense of direction; she cowered at the thought of the world waiting, as it waited every morning, to be approached with confidence, or to be feared. A large part of her confidence had been Craig. She had loved him, fought with him, cherished him, slept with him. How simple if he were dead, she thought. Then I could really mourn him, with honesty and a saddened heart. It would be easy to mourn, and gradually forget, and go on.

  But he is not dead.

  Amy had to look everywhere in the tiny house, explore every possible hiding place. And then she had to search the yard as well, from behind half-closed blinds. Birds sang carelessly in the Indian-summer sun and leaves blew across the deserted road, rattled against the milk bottles on her porch. Church bells rang in the distance. The fearful searching gradually sickened her.

  I'm not afraid of him, she told herself. Yesterday I loved him—I know I loved him. She tried, but could feel no sense of love, which shamed her. I'm a psychologist, I understand these things. I can help him. Can't I help him?

  Amy knew what she had to do, and she knew it was getting dangerously late.

  In her bedroom she stripped herself, located bruises, walked dispiritedly into the shower. The hot, almost smoking water was soothing to sore flesh. Head back, she soaped her throat and breasts, and her hands aroused explicit memories of the two of them together in the shower, fiercely passionate even after a night of lovemaking, slippery as otters but trying to couple. He had been so wonderfully passionate at first, but that had faded away, faded away. . . . How many times had they made love in the past few months? Why hadn't he wanted her?

  Wearily Amy turned off the shower and got out, drying the inflamed corrupted body. From the neck up she felt quite dead. What if we had married? she thought. There was a gashing pain in her stomach.

  Amy dressed, too slowly, in snug wool hip-huggers, a very expensive pale-blue shirt with button-down collar and French cuffs. She took a bright-pink sweater from the closet but laid it out, folded, on the bed. She put on a headband and sunglasses, swallowed two aspirins and stood looking at herself in the vanity mirror while she wound her watch. Pale lips, pale cheeks, a look of vacancy. There was a raw spot on the side of her tongue: she had made it raw gritting her teeth against the chills that kept coming in waves. . . . I will go there, and I will see him, and he will smile at me and touch me reassuringly and say, You dreamed it all. Amy, it was a dream. Just look at me. There's nothing wrong with me, Amy.

  She wondered if it would help to scream.

  Football games were in progress on the playing field, boys were loafing along the road in front of the school wall. A few of them waved as Amy went by in her Mustang. She was scarcely aware of them at all.

  Because it was Sunday she parked in the drive just behind the administration building. Craig's Chevelle was in front of her, forty feet away. She stared at it, looked away, stubbed out the cigarette she'd been smoking in the ashtray. She walked around the building to the shadowy wide steps and let herself in. As far as she could tell, the lower floor was deserted, filled with an amber light. She went first to her own office, making no noise. Inside she searched in her desk for the key to Craig's office, which he had given her long ago.

  She was hoping she wouldn't find it, but it was there with the rubber bands and the paper clips.

  Craig's office was almost the length of the hall away. Amy knocked softly on the walnut-inlaid door and waited numbly, breathing through her mouth. She knocked again to make sure he wasn't there. Then she slipped the key into the lock, turned it, let herself in.

  The office was quite dark. Amy stood with her back to the door until her eyes became adjusted, then made her way across the carpet to the windows. She tilted the blinds slightly, letting in just enough light to help her find some tangible evidence that he was insane; proof that Peter Mathis and Michael Young had become terrifyingly confused in Craig's mind. Doremus had doubted that she would find such proof, but it had been Amy's idea, she had to try. If Craig remained free, what would he do next?

  Amy went through the desk drawers first, finding them cluttered with tabbed folders, files of letters. It was slow work; she studied every note in Craig's hand for mention of Peter. At first she looked often at her wristwatch, worried about the minutes ticking away. She had no idea where Craig was. He could be upstairs in the infirmary close to Peter, perhaps sleeping in the next bed. Or he might be approaching his office right now. She glanced up, bit her lip sharply, went back to work.

  The desk drawers yielded nothing. Amy looked at the filing cabinets, sighed. She had tried to straighten out Craig's files one afternoon but had given up in despair. He favored clutter and that was that, but he did know just where everything was. Inspired by anxiety, Amy combed the drawers swiftly but found no folder with Peter Mathis's

  name on it. She closed the top three drawers and stood back, hands at her sides, blood pounding like a cataract in her temples. What, then, had he done with it? Was it possible that Craig had never transcribed his notes on Peter?

  The bottom drawer of the file contained a dozen boxes of tape for the compact Wollensak recorder on Craig's desk. Amy hunkered down, searched through the boxes. None were labeled. She considered taking them all, listening to them in the privacy of her own office. But she realized that would take hours, and if he returned to his office and happened to miss the tapes . . .

  Amy stood and pushed the drawer in with the toe of one shoe, feeling defeated. Vacantly she gazed at the tape recorder. Apparently Craig had been using it recently. Amy considered the half-used spool of tape. Then,
impulsively, she punched the proper buttons, rewound the tape, adjusted the tuning disc to a whisper and started the machine again. The tape unwound smoothly and silently. Amy looked at her watch again: a minute and a half had passed. There was nothing on the tape.

  "I'll kill you sheriff I'll kill you I'll kill you I'll shoot you right in the goddam guts if you don't leave my mother alone—"

  Amy stiffened, felt her heart contract painfully as the childish vituperation poured from the speaker.

  "You're going to leave her alone you better not touch her you're going to learn to keep your damn hands off her You're going to stop f—"

  Unthinkingly Amy reached down and turned the machine off with a stab of her finger. The skin of her face felt icy. She was torn between listening to all of it and running, running until she was out in the cool autumn afternoon, in the bright sun. She looked away, through the tilted-down blinds. There were a few boys in the quadrangle, moving slowly, gesturing. Tears came to her eyes.

  She saw Craig then, on the walk in front of the cafeteria. Peter was with him, a step behind, looking serious and frail. Craig was smoking his pipe. They were walking toward the administration building. As she watched, Craig turned and said something to Peter. He seemed to smile. Shocked, Amy took a step back, although there was no chance that he could see her even if he happened to look directly at his windows. She could not help thinking how ordinary the scene was, Craig strolling on the Sunday campus with one of the boys. He was a favorite of a good many of them; she had seen him many times from her own windows, and felt a burst of pride.

  The scathing, ten-year-old voice she had heard as the metallic brown tape unwound intruded on this memory. Amy moved quickly and soundlessly across the carpet, let herself out, remembered to lock the door behind her. She fled down the hall, entered her own office, threw herself down on the whooshing couch. She lay there for five minutes, for ten, motionless, hands over her face.

  Amy realized now how Craig could have been at Helen's when Michael called. The voice had been on tape. Peter made the call from Craig's house, and activated the tape recorder.

  If you need me, Doremus had said, walk out on the quadrangle. Wear a pink sweater. I'll come on the run. It might take me ten minutes, twelve minutes . . . I don't know. But I'll get there.

  After a while Amy lifted her head, listening. She had heard the two of them when they entered the building, but there hadn't been a sound since. Possibly they had gone upstairs to the infirmary.

  She glanced at the pink sweater folded over the back of the chair behind her desk. Then she left the office without taking the sweater, walked nervelessly down the long hall. There were glimmerings of sun on the brown tile floor. She carried the key to Craig's office in one sweaty fist.

  Craig had turned on the desk lamp and closed the blinds all the way. He sat behind the desk, his chair tipped back against the windowsill. There was a vertical line of strain between his eyes, but his voice was low, controlled. Peter sat nearby, in a high-backed wing chair, his feet on an ottoman. His head was tilted to one side and his eyes were closed. He had gone very easily into deep hypnotic sleep, in a matter of seconds. He had a curious, lifeless look, his skin waxen against the deep red of the leather chair.

  "Your mother is there, Peter," Craig said, his eyes on the child's still face. "She's in the room with you. And you're happy to see her. Very happy. You're close to her. You love her very much."

  Peter's eyelids fluttered, and his throat muscles worked. Gradually a smile appeared, but he lost his hold on it. He trembled, lightly, in his sleep. Craig leaned forward, worriedly.

  "It's all right, Peter. You're with your mother, and everything is all right. You're going to speak to her today. You want very much to speak to her, to . . . tell her that you love her." Craig's voice weakened. "We only have . . . a little more time, Peter. Today you have to speak to her."

  Noiselessly Craig rose from the chair and walked out from behind the desk. He stopped beside Peter's chair.

  "Do you remember the sound of her voice? . . . Now she's speaking to you, Peter. What is she saying to you? Try to remember, try to tell me." He looked down tensely, waiting for a reaction. Peter's head rolled from side to side and his lips parted, but the only sound to escape him was a troubled sigh.

  Outside, the wind had risen, driving leaves against the windows. Craig looked up distractedly, then returned his attention to Peter.

  "Please try. Please speak to me."

  The boy's back arched as if he were in pain. He fell back, groaning. But he said nothing.

  Craig continued to watch Peter's face, intently and hopefully. Then his own throat muscles tightened. He rubbed his eyes remorsefully.

  "You're not trying," he said brokenly. "Peter, you're . . ." The wind sighed, vibrating the glass of the windows. "Let's go back once more, to . . . to . . ." His mouth turned down petulantly. For a few moments there was sharp hatred in Craig's eyes. He reached suddenly, savagely, for Peter. The wind moaned, stopping him. Craig stepped back in fright. There was a roaring in his mind; the wind had become a bitter gale. He felt the barrenness of perpetual winter in his heart. His knees gave way and he slipped down beside the chair. In the horrid winter wastes of his heart a stricken eleven-year-old boy lived again. The cry from his heart was a cry of endless terror, or loss.

  Michaeelll

  "Michael," Craig said, writhing on the carpet. "Come back!"

  He began crawling, slowly and torturously, sobbing in his throat. A few feet from the chair he toppled. His feet threshed against the carpet. Each violent breath knotted him. He was as speechless as Peter Mathis, who slept obliviously in the chair a few feet away. But, gradually, recognizable words were wrenched from his throat—adolescent, rambling phrases became clear, spoken in a high, youthful voice.

  "Look what Mike made for you, Mother. I helped him. We went down to the creek today; you ought to see how full it is! There was a big black snake in a tree. Mike swam right under it and didn't see it. I held my breath under water a minute and a half. Mike counted . . ."

  Before long he lay quietly on the soft carpet in the darkened room. Occasionally his chest heaved. He was quiet, but tension had scored his face. Then, abruptly, he sat up, listening, eyes alert. The sleeping boy attracted him. He walked over to the chair, looking grave and studious. When he spoke again his phrasing was that of an adult, but it was the same clear, childish voice.

  "I know why you won't talk to me. I understand, Mike. I let them take Mother away." Craig's face darkened with resentment and hatred but he went on. "I found you, though. That's the important thing. We all thought you were gone, but I found out. You will speak to me again, won't you, Mike? Tonight. After the last one is dead."

  He sat down behind the desk, a very purposeful eleven-year-old boy. "I saved her for last. I know you want to help me tonight, Michael. I know you want to help me kill her. Auntie Helen hated Mother. She really deserves to die. More than the others. She's going to get what's coming to her." He was silent, thinking. "We'll call her on the phone again. I'll say. . . " His voice went even higher, and his eyes widened in excitement. "'Auntie Helen, this is Michael! I have to see you; a terrible thing is going to happen to Craig! Please come, I'm at Craig's house—please hurry.'" Craig shot a look at the sleeping boy, pleased with himself, and he giggled suddenly, covering his mouth with one hand. Then he reached out and turned on the tape recorder.

  ". . . king my mother, you're not ever going to get near her again you're not—"

  Craig hastily punched the button that stopped the tape; he sat stiffly for three or four seconds, staring at the machine. Fury reddened his eyes and he leaped from the chair in which he'd been sitting. The chair banged against the windowsill. Peter twitched in his sleep but his eyes remained closed. Craig raced for the office door, opened it.

  The hallway outside was clear.

  Craig made a savage sucking noise in his throat. For a few moments he felt dizzy. He leaned against the jamb, staring down the dese
rted hall. Midway there was a hot blaze of light: the westerly sun was shining through the glass of the entrance doors. The harsh light made Craig's eyes water. But he noticed something else at the far end of the hall, another vivid stripe of sun slashed diagonally across the dull brown tile. Almost as soon as he became aware of the stripe it vanished. A door had been quietly closed.

  Something like a smile appeared on Craig's face, but his jaw muscles were rigid. He pulled the door of his office shut and began walking. Opposite the entrance he shielded his eyes from the glaring afternoon sun. Only a little of the fury had left his eyes. It made the clamped, jaw-breaking smile uniquely terrible.

  When he reached Amy's office he didn't hesitate but yanked open the door and stepped inside. Amy was standing by her desk, visibly out of breath. Her head jerked around at his coming. She jumped half a foot.

  Craig said, in his own voice. "You have a key to my office. I want it."

  His eyes fumed, brooded. He stood slightly hunched, wolflike. He was totally unfamiliar. Amy tried to find something in him to respond to. She could do nothing but shake her head in weak protest.

  Craig's smile faded. He moved closer, looking her over. Amy's right hand was clenched on the desk top.

  He said offhandedly, "You're a no-good, goddamned whore. You know that, don't you?"

  Amy's breath hissed. She had been prepared for anything but indignity, humiliation. The slap of it gave her new life, a flickering of courage. "Why? Why am I that?" Her eyes were steady on him; tears formed in them. "Because I . . . loved you?"

  "Give me the key or I'll break your hand."