His name was Robert Alan Londrigan. He was two months shy of his thirty-ninth birthday. He made his living as a television news reporter at a local network-affiliate station. He liked pepperoni and extra cheese on his pizzas, when he had them. He had never once cheated on his wife, even though a few women had made offers (and despite his having been dangerously tempted once). He played the flute in his high school orchestra. He didn’t like the smell of onions. Physically, he was in better condition than were most men in their late thirties. He was neither as handsome as he wished nor as homely as he feared. He had never killed anyone or anything, save for the occasional spider or silverfish that found its way into the house.
But enough of this; it’s best we return to Once Upon a Time and join him as—
—the first group of ghost-children disappeared behind a row of trees that lined the sidewalk. Another, smaller group of creatures emerged and moved stealthily along; there were devils in this batch, werewolves and misshapen monstrosities from recent horror movies, followed by a princess or two who looked over their shoulders at the fast-approaching vampire brigade, all of them continuing the previous chant: “Tonight is the night when pumpkins stare/Through sheaves and leaves everywhere....”
Deciding to wish them joy and many happy frights, unaware of the dozens of glowing pumpkin eyes that watched him from a distance, Robert turned his attention back to the irritations at hand.
Denise had been livid about the lead story for the six p.m. broadcast: An anencephalic baby had been born to a young couple in Florida who wanted the infant taken off life support, but then the Adopters—a fanatical fringe group who claimed association with the local Pro-Life organization—had petitioned the courts to stop the parents from doing so, their justification being that the baby could not speak for itself so they, being Good Christians With A Conscience, would speak on its behalf. The court decreed that the baby could only be taken off life support if officially pronounced brain-dead; the hospital’s legal spokesperson pointed out that in order for the baby to be pronounced brain-dead it first had to physically possess a brain. The parents were both zombies at this point, and the doctors were screaming for immediate action so the baby’s organs could be harvested for desperately needed transplant material; if that weren’t enough, attorneys for the Pro-Life organization emphatically denied that the petitioners were in any way affiliated with their organization and filed for a restraining order to stop “the damaging, unsolicited, ill-advised, and potentially life-threatening actions” of the Adopters. Yes, it was a perverted circus, but it was also a golden story, a heaven-sent ratings-grabber if ever there was one, and though Robert’s heart broke for the poor child and its parents, he was enough of a news professional to know an opportunity when one presented itself.
Vulture Culture—show the viewing public photographs of a mass slaughter and convince them they’re looking at pretty pictures drawn by their kindergarten child.
In this business, you either accepted that or staked out your spot on the unemployment line.
No sooner had he come through the door than Denise was in his face:
“Why didn’t you call and warn me?”
“There wasn’t time. The story broke fifteen minutes before we went on air.”
“Goddammit, Bobby, you know how that sort of thing upsets me!” This said not with whining self-pity but with a hard edge of disgust that betrayed the fear both of them had been living with ever since the doctor had given them the news.
Denise was in her sixth month of pregnancy. Robert made it a point to call her every night before the six p.m. broadcast (the only one she ever watched) and warn her if there were any stories about abandoned babies or abused children or any such prime-news-time horrors. Her pregnancy had not, thus far, been an easy one; on top of the hormonal typhoon rampaging through her body, she was saddled with an all-too delicate frame and an even more tenuous immune system that was often forced to critical mass just to fight off a mild cold. The last thing she needed was any type of news story to remind her just how terrible life could be to a helpless child. Sure, maybe he was being a little over-protective of her—or maybe he was just a closet sexist jerk who believed that a pregnant woman was incapable of handling any amount of stress—but her mood swings were becoming so abrupt and fiercely extreme that he was afraid to tell her anything even remotely unpleasant.
This baby was too important to both of them: in the six years they had been married, Denise had suffered two miscarriages, both in the fourth month; this was the longest she’d ever gone With Child. Robert would have swum a hundred raging rivers and then walked across a field of broken glass in bare feet to make sure she carried this baby to term.
They both so wanted a family.
He’d looked at her and sighed. “I’m sorry, all right? I know that doesn’t make things easier for you—and I sure as hell know it doesn’t do anything to lessen the shock of seeing us lead with that story—but I swear, hon, I swear to you there wasn’t time for me to call.”
She sat down at the kitchen table, her hands clasped tightly together as if in prayer, and took several deep, calming breaths. “Why did you have to lead with it?”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“Three guesses.”
“We couldn’t not lead with it! It isn’t every day that a child is born without a brain and—”
“—and it’s sick, Bobby! The way everyone pounces on this sort of thing, cheapening someone’s tragedy like that.”
“It’s news, Denise, okay? Look, I don’t dictate human nature—”
“—I never said you did.”
He paused, taking a deep breath, calming himself. “Don’t you think something like this breaks my heart, too? Christ, hon, if you think the video we used was bad, you should’ve seen the stuff we didn’t run. The affiliate station in Florida actually managed to get tape of the baby itself, and it was....” He shook his head. “It was awful, just awful.”
“Vulture Culture?” she whispered.
“You know it.”
“Then why not just slap a keyhole-shaped lens onto the camera? It’s the same principle. You’ve said yourself that it’s not really news anymore, it’s showbiz, entertainment, the more shocking, the better. God! Don’t you ever feel like you’re helping to create a nation of voyeurs?”
“People were voyeuristic long before I started in this business.”
“You want to argue semantics now? Fine, you may not have created the status quo, but I don’t see you doing anything to stop perpetuating it.”
“Like what? Refuse to do the piece? You looked at our bills lately? This house? You think you could live any other way than to what you’ve become accustomed?”
She glared at him. “Don’t make this about money, Bobby. I grew up poor and so did you—”
“—that’s right! That is absolutely right, I did grow up poor and I have no passionate desire to return to the government cheese line or protect the family’s food stamps like they were the fucking Rosetta Stone.”
Denise shook her head. “Are you ever going to let go of that? You think it cloaks you in some kind of saintly nobility that you grew up in near-poverty? Maybe once, a long time ago, sure, maybe, but now...now you’re just like me, Bobby—spoiled. More than spoiled—jaded, when you get right down to it. Maybe even worse than jaded...indifferent...numb. I can’t tell anymore, and at times like this I’m not sure I should even care.”
That one hurt, but he didn’t want to let it show. Why had the argument even gone this far? She knew (didn’t she?) how much he loved her, how much her just existing made him rejoice over every morning, every breath.
“Don’t upset yourself like this, Denise, all right? You know what the doctor said about stress and—”
“—and there’s my loving husband, right there in high-definition in front of God and everyone, well-groomed and oh-so-handsome, inviting us all to come and gawk....”
He tried explaining to her about Jeffries, how C
entral Ohio’s most popular news icon was in New York interviewing for a network position (one he would certainly be offered, judging from the way the network had been courting him), and how his departure would leave the weeknight-anchor position wide open; even though the station was trying out various reporters in different slots, it was common knowledge that Robert was the front-runner to step into Jeffries’ shoes—providing that he used this week to show his Stuff.
“Denise, honey, please—don’t look away, okay? Please, listen to me. Look, the first three stories of the night were the anencephalic baby, then a couple in Mount Vernon who spent their last five dollars on lottery tickets and hit the twenty-seven million dollar jackpot, and the city council zoning vote. Openings like that are the equivalent of handing an anchor the Holy Grail because those three stories, in that order, gave me the chance to go from deadly serious to annoyingly light to professionally efficient—all in under six minutes! An anchorman has to be able to turn it on and off like that, to make those quick transitions—studies show that viewers’ moods while watching the news are often shaped by the tone of voice the newscaster uses. And I showed ‘em, hon—God, how I showed them. It was the best news broadcast I’ve ever done and everyone at the station tonight knew it. This may sound crass, but in a twisted way that poor baby’s pathetic plight may be one of the best things that ever happened to us.”
He knew those last words were a mistake even as they were coming out of his mouth, but he’d been too full of himself to stop talking.
Denise didn’t buy his spin on the baby’s plight and accused him once again of not wanting to have a child with her—an old chestnut that she’d been pulling out since the third month whenever she wanted to get his attention.
Robert—tired, hungry, with the beginnings of a monster headache—snapped back at her: “You think I don’t want us to have a family? God! Okay, you want to start throwing around accusations? Try this—why didn’t you tell me you’d stopped taking the pill?”
“So I was right, you don’t want this baby!”
“Of course I want it, I want us to have a family, but I thought it was something we were trying for together. You’re the one who stopped taking the pill and then sprung it on me—”
“I wanted it to be a surprise!”
“I hate surprises—you could have at least let me know that you were off it, then maybe—ah, hell, this is getting nowhere. Believe it or not, I love you more than God—I know it’s kind of hard to tell right now but let’s face it, you’re not exactly all warm fuzziness yourself.”
Then things went from bad to worse when one of the cats rubbed up against his leg: “And what about the cats, huh? You know I’m allergic to them but you kept them anyway and now I have to take so much goddamn allergy medication every day I feel like a walking pharmacy!”
“Don’t you dare throw that back at me again! I was willing to get rid of them but you said no!”
“I would’ve felt guilty, you know that!”
On and on and on, spite and hurtful words standing in for reason and emotional support while they fought about everything except what was truly bothering them: Six months and counting, fingers crossed and a prayer on the lips....
Finally it got so damned ridiculous they couldn’t stand the sight of each other, so Robert grabbed his coat, stormed out of the house and, after two drinks on an empty stomach at a favorite neighborhood watering hole, found himself here; at the park, on a bench, stewing at the sight and sounds of the Halloween trick-or-treaters as they made their happy way from house to house.
A group of costumed teens was taking a shortcut through the park. Robert took little notice of them, only looking up when a lone straggler, evidently in no hurry to catch up with his friends, passed. The kid’s mask was a macabre delight; it looked as if someone had cleaved his skull open with an axe, then reassembled bone fragments from his shattered face into a crazy-quilt, jigsaw-puzzle grotesquerie that bore only the most passing resemblance to a human face. It was actually kind of impressive, if you went in for that sort of thing.
“That’s a helluva mask,” Robert said as the kid strode past.
“Go fuck yourself, Willy,” replied the kid, and then sprinted away.
Robert was frozen with, of all things, embarrassment.
Dammit to hell—maybe he hadn’t fallen under the moonspell of the Halloween around him, but that kid had now shattered any hope of enjoying things.
So Robert went back to his stewing.
In less tense times, Denise would have called it pouting, then told him how much his pouting turned her on so go ‘head, pout some more, oh, yeah, baby, pout for me....
He almost laughed but stopped himself from doing so, a form of punishment for the abominable way he’d behaved toward her; so he leaned forward, elbows on his knees, face in his hands: Portrait of a Would-Be Celebrity Contemplating His Sins.
“A goblin lives in our house, in our house, in OUR house,” sang another group of ghost-children.
Robert paid them no mind.
Was he really being so selfish? He’d worked his ass off to get this far; the fluff pieces used as filler at noon and five-thirty, filling in at the weekend and late-night desks, biting the bullet and learning how to engage in “friendly banter” with the various (and sometimes even vapid) co-anchors like they were doing some sort of acting-class improvisation exercise...he deserved this shot. Okay, yeah, maybe there was an element of ego fulfillment involved here—how couldn’t there be?—but mostly he wanted the anchor job because it would ensure a good life for his wife and child, for the family.
So why did he feel like some kind of peep-show barker?
He sat up straight, stared across the park at another group or trick-or-treaters, and cursed himself for trying to reconcile his desire for advancement with the tragedy of that baby and its parents. But reporting the news was his job; how could Denise blame him for wanting to make maximum impact? Okay, he could have had one of the interns give her a call when he realized he wouldn’t have time to do so himself, but things had been so hectic and wired and he’d been so pumped for the broadcast, psyching himself up for what he knew might be one of the most important hours of his career and—
—and you just didn’t think about her, admit it.
“Selfish prick,” he said, evidently a bit too loud for the old woman on the footpath a few yards away, out for a pleasant October evening stroll to watch the young ones and remember when she herself had gone joyously from house to house, bag and flashlight in hand. She stopped at the sound of Robert’s voice, frowned at him, then, with a disapproving shake of her head, continued on.
Just a fount of charm today, aren’t you, Bobby-Boy?
Then: Good thing she wasn’t around when Split-Face wished me a good evening.
He rose to his feet, turned in her direction, and opened his mouth to apologize, but it stuck in his throat.
He blinked, looked away, and then back.
There was now more than one sad and stooped old woman ambling along the footpath; trailing behind her like a succession of ghosts were other women, some older, some younger, each dimly visible, each more diaphanous than the last.
One used a walker, one didn’t; one wore tattered clothes that looked to have been purchased at a Goodwill store, while the next was adorned in sable and pearls; trailing behind her, so confident and healthy that her bloom was still visible, another women—this one obviously younger than the others—strode with jaunty energy, her eyes filled with mischief and wonder; the woman after, pitiful and emaciated, shambled slowly forward, brittle hands knotted against aged, sagging breasts, eyes unfocused, lines on her face harshened by shadows and age spots; sauntering dreamily behind her, arm in arm with a true love only she could see, the next lady smiled as she stared adoringly at the invisible gentleman with her, obviously still in love with him after so many, many years; then came women who were younger, still, though Robert could only tell this by their shapes rather than visible features beca
use the parade was becoming more and more indistinct, bits of mist, until, at last, small shapes, delicate shapes, ghost-children shapes trailed at the end, more wisps of memory than anything else.
Yet Robert could tell there was something uniform about all the women and shapes, a similarity in the facial structure of those whose features he could see, a sameness in stride and gesture in those whose forms became less corporeal.
Sisters, maybe?
Before logic could kick in and remind him that several of the shapes were more spirit than sister-like (and therefore probably a construct of a mind and body that had consumed only two Crown Royals in the last nine hours), the first woman, the old woman who’d been so offended at Robert’s calling himself a prick, stopped on the footpath and turned to face the others.
The air changed—nothing cataclysmic, mind you, no great wind suddenly thundered across the park, assaulting everything in its path and howling with Wagnerian might—but there was nonetheless a sudden sense of density in the atmosphere; Robert was suddenly too aware of the sound made by the October leaves as the wind scattered them across the footpath; the dry whisper of sorrow, the crackle of old regrets stepping out of dark corners and pulling at him with skeletal fingers, all of it cast in shimmering silver by the moonlight of a cold, cold heaven: everything around him appeared inverted suddenly, inside-out and upside-down, a reflection trapped in the arc of a polished spoon—
—and the first old woman was no longer at the end of the footpath but right next to him, with the rest of the spirit parade approaching her, and Robert grew dizzy and disoriented as the procession dwindled by degrees with each step they took until, at last, they dissolved into the flesh of the disapproving old woman—yet her face, like some holograph, held traces of all of them: a slight tilt of her head, and there was the fourth old woman; a subtle nod, and one of the younger women was there, along with the older, decrepit ones and the wisps of memory that were the little-mist-girls.
Robert was too stunned and too frightened to move, speak, or even breathe; when his chest tightened and his lungs threatened to implode, when his legs began to buckle, when his vision began to blur and the park spin, only then did he look away from the impossible spectacle and grab the back of the bench to cement himself in what he hoped was still reality.
In Silent Graves Page 2