“‘Oooh, baby, fuck that big cock in my wet pussy! Fuck it in me hard!’ Bitch could talk that trash....”
She made a sudden movement, one that surprised even her—you could tell from the shocked expression that crossed her face, because she looked out the window, hoping that her stop might be close but it wasn’t and that didn’t matter anymore, all that mattered was getting off this bus so she could try to compose herself and forget that she’d once shared space with a couple of misogynistic foul-mouthed scumbags who between them didn't have the brains God gave an ice cube, so she reached up to pull the cord and signal the driver to stop, then yanked her hand back before doing so because that might cause people to notice her and, Jesus, why did this have to happen? She was just tired and wanted to get home and have a nice dinner, maybe watch a movie she’d recorded earlier in the week.
There was no pity in Robert for her; he didn’t feel sorry for her, he was angry for her.
Just this once, he thought. Just this once the world will not be this way within reach of my arm.
He turned and said, “Could you please keep your voices down?”
The two young men stopped talking and looked at him with hollow-point bullets in their eyes.
“You talkin’ to us, motherfucker?”
“Yes, I am. I would appreciate it if you’d please keep your voices down.”
“Aw, we breakin’ your concentration?”
“You’re very loud and your language offends me.”
“You dissin’ us, motherfucker?”
“What do you think you’re doing to the rest of us?”
“Free country, free speech. Motherfucker.”
Something sputtered in Robert’s mind and he laughed. Just once.
“Something funny, motherfucker?”
“Hey, here’s a thought,” said Robert, peripherally aware of the sound of crinkling paper, “why don’t you try something like ‘sir’ or ‘buddy’ or ‘dude’ or even ‘asshole’ instead of that other word of which you seem so fond?”
“Tellin’ us how we should talk now?”
“I’m asking you politely, for the last time, to either watch your language or keep your voices down.”
“Suck my cock, you faggot.”
“Butt-buddy!”
“Why don’t you leave us alone and go back to eyein’ that uggo sittin’ across from you?”
The woman froze at the word “uggo.”
That one hurt, Robert could tell.
“Shut your filthy mouths,” he snarled.
One of them unbuttoned his coat and reached for something under his shirt. “Why don’t I shut your fuckin’ mouth, asshole?”
“Looks to me like his teeth needs some cappin’, know what I’m saying?”
One of them moved to pull a gun from under his shirt.
Robert mindsputtered.
It wasn’t until a minute later, when the bus came to a sudden stop and the driver was running down the aisle shouting something Robert couldn’t understand, that he saw what had happened: one of the young men was lying on the floor with a broken arm and a bloody knot on the side of his head, and the other was on his knees trying to pull a large shard of broken glass from his cheek. The shattered remains of the new door pane lay on the floor. Robert was clutching one of the sink pipes in his hand.
The driver skidded to a halt, picked up the gun, and grabbed Robert by the back of his coat.
“That’s it for you, pal! Sit your ass down and wait for the cops or I’ll—”
“It wasn’t his doing, sir,” called the elderly man. “I saw the whole thing. Those two young men pulled a gun and threatened him.”
“That’s exactly right,” said the old man’s wife. “He was only defending himself.” The old woman suddenly looked familiar to Robert—her smile, the sharpness of her nose, the calming hazel of her eyes—but he couldn’t quite place where he might have seen her before...though it seemed to him that she ought to have been wearing some kind of cap or hat.
Both she and her husband were trying not to smile too obviously. They looked at Robert with quiet approval and tight-grinned admiration: You’re a good boy.
The bus driver turned toward the woman across the aisle. “Is that right, miss?”
“Yessir...,” she said, not making eye contact.
“Look, pal,” he said, then stopped. “Hey, I know you, don’t I? Yeah, you’re that guy on the news, right? Bob Londrigan?”
“Um, yeah...yes, I am.”
“Huh. Whatta you know. Look, Mr. Londrigan, I gotta call this in. You’re gonna have to talk to the cops. I’m sorry.”
“Yeah...me, too.” He looked at the woman across the aisle. “I’m so sorry, miss. It’s just that they were so obviously upsetting you and—”
“It’s all right,” she whispered, still shaking and not making eye contact with him, either.
“No, it isn’t. I got all pissed off and self-righteous and whipped out the macho bullshit because I was afraid they were going to ruin your evening and the only thing my behavior succeeded in doing was the same damned thing!” He stepped toward her and, without thinking about it, reached down and took hold of one of her hands. “Please forgive me. You see, I haven’t been myself lately. It doesn’t matter if you know who I am or not, see, because the thing is...the thing is, my wife died about eleven days ago and ever since then all I’ve been able to think about is how many ways I ruined things for her the way these two idiots ruined the evening for you—I mean, I assumed they were ruining your evening, offending you, and when they called you ‘uggo’ and I saw the expression on your face I guess I just...I guess I just saw the way my wife must have felt all those times I said something cruel to her, or canceled dinner or movie plans at the last minute when she’d been looking forward to them all week, or committed any one of a million little cruelties that chip away at a person’s self-esteem or their hope or their belief that if they’ll just be patient, their affection will be returned to them in equal measure...and I had to do something, understand? I had to prevent it from happening to you because I didn’t stop it from happening to her, and I’m sorry, I’m so sorry....” He wasn’t aware that he’d begun weeping. “I’m so very, very, very sorry, and I just wanted you to know that, that not everyone’s like these two guys, not every man thinks of women in those terms, and I used to, I really did—I mean, it wasn’t quite so base or crude as they were being, but I looked on women like that, you know? I mean, I might have shown up with flowers and held doors open for them and taken them to nice restaurants or things like that, but always, somewhere in the back of my mind, I was trying to figure out how to get them into bed and I think now, I really, truly believe, that that made me a lot worse than these two, because at least they’re up-front about it, at least they’re honest enough not to try to put a nice, charming face on it, but me...I was so damned covert about what I wanted, I was so dishonest and duplicitous that when you get right down to it, I had no more respect for women than they do, I just dressed it up in nicer clothes and practiced it in classier surroundings, and I hate myself for having been that way but I’m not anymore. I hate the man I used to be, understand? I hate him and ever since my wife died I’ve been...I mean—”
“Hey,” said the bus driver, “take it easy, Mr. Londrigan, please....”
“—I can’t help but think now that, ever since she died, I’ve finally turned into the kind of man who could make her happy, who could return her affection in equal measure, who could listen to her and understand her needs and want to do something about it only to please her, see? Only to please her, not to shut her up about something or make her happy long enough to get what I wanted out of her...and I just wanted you to know that I’m sorry those two guys upset you, and I wanted you to know that I’m sorry I behaved the way I did, and I wanted you to know that I think you’re a lovely, decent, wonderful person and the man who finally gets you is going to be the luckiest guy in the world because he’ll know that you’re the greatest woma
n in the world and he’ll treat you the way I should’ve treated her and...and I’m sorry! I’m sorry for all of it, it shouldn’t have happened and I wish I could take it all back, I wish this had never happened....”
He expected her to pull her hand back and demand that he get away, but not only did she not do that, she now placed her other hand on top of his own and half-smiled. Her expression puzzled him. She looked surprised, slightly overwhelmed, a touch confused, a bit proud
(...you’re such a good boy...)
and more than a little moved. It took a moment longer before he was able to peg the expression, but then it hit him: she wore the look of a teacher who’d just had a breakthrough with a particularly difficult student.
In the moment before she spoke to him, Robert became aware of several things simultaneously: the two young men on the floor of the bus had stopped moving—not simply given up and slumped into unconsciousness, but had frozen in place, just like the bird beyond the bus’s window, paused in mid-flight, its wings outstretched, just like the elderly couple stopped halfway between rising from their seats and standing fully erect, just like the snow trickling down outside, halted just before it hit the ground.
Aside from himself, the woman, and the bus driver, the whole world seemed to have been put on pause.
“Oh, Bobby,” said the woman, “you’ve finally started to get the idea, haven’t you? I mean really, truly get the idea!” She reached out with her other hand, cupped the back of his head, and pulled him close, kissing him on the lips.
Kissing him the way Denise used to, soft and warm and moving her lower lip ever so slightly side to side.
God, how her lips felt exactly like Denise’s.
She pulled away, beaming, and looked at the bus driver. “I think he’s come a long way, don’t you?”
“Hey,” said the driver, “he’s Willy, and Willy rocks.”
Rael reached up and tore off his bus-driver mask. “You passed this test, Willy—and let’s all give a listen, shall we? Tell us what he’s won, Mr. Announcer. ‘Why, for his splendid if slightly misguided efforts, Rael, Willy has won a wish fulfilled!’”
“No,” whispered Robert, feeling part of his mind crumble, “please...no....” He felt dizzy and confused and sick to his stomach; everywhere in his body there was once again the old familiar exquisite pain, and he reached up and rubbed his eyes, trying to slow the beating of his heart, rubbing his eyes hard, harder, as hard as he could, wanting to rid them of the last image burned into them, and when he finished, when he pulled his hand away from his eyes and blinked, the brakes of the bus hissed and there was a slight lurch and—
—and he was back in his seat, holding the hardware store bag containing his purchases, and the old couple was still up front, as was the bus driver—a different bus driver—and there was the woman sitting across the aisle from him, and now the bus was stopping to let on two young men dressed in stylishly torn, oversized blue jeans and loose shirts to match, wearing baseballs caps with the brims turned toward the back. One was white, one was black; they took seats in the back of the bus. They resumed their conversation as the bus pulled away.
“Man, you buggin’, you know what I’m sayin’? Buggin’ worse’n a can of Raid.”
“Like hell I am.”
“Like hell you ain’t. The thing is, dude, anything can happen in kairos if you know wha’cher doin’! It’s like—okay, y’ever see one of them little kids, right, and they’re talking to their ‘imaginary’ frien’? Just ’cause you can’t see that frien’ don’t mean it ain’t there, know what I’m sayin’? But if you, like, don’ got no idea how to use kairos, you could make yourself crazy in a New York minute. ‘Specially if someone done went and gave you that ability and you either don’ know it or know it but don’ know what the hell to do with it. Like handin’ a two-year-old the remote control to reality.”
“I hear ya.”
“Thas cool—so don’t you go tryin’ to tell me I don’t know shit about it, got me?”
“Or what? You’ll sic one of your ‘imaginary’ friends on my ass?”
“You got that right.”
Robert turned in his seat. “What did you say?”
The two young men looked at him. “I’m sorry,” said one of them. “If we was talkin’ too loud, I apologize.” There was no threat in his voice; the apology was genuine.
“Kairos,” said Robert. “What were you saying about kairos?”
The two young men looked at one another: Don’t know what he’s on, but maybe if we ask nice he’ll give us some.
“I’m sorry, man,” said the other, “but we wasn’t talkin’ about...what’d you call it? Karo? Isn’t that some kind of pancake syrup?”
Robert gritted his teeth. “What were you saying to your friend when the two of you got on a few moments ago?”
“We was just arguin’ over what to get on our pizza. This is kind’ve a guys’ night out, y’know? Get away from the girlfriends.” They smiled at him, then, with much quieter voices, went back to their conversation.
Robert looked around, near-frantic, and checked the world outside the window; snow falling like it was supposed to, birds flying in strict accordance with all known laws of physics, people walking along just as free and straight as you please, everything fine here in chronos world, call your travel agent for more information on our kairos package.
Robert mindsputtered, and laughed, just once, very quietly.
The woman across the aisle looked at him and smiled.
She was not the same woman as before.
“Have we ever met?” he asked her.
“No, I don’t think so,” she said. “But I watch you on the news all the time. I was very sorry about your wife and baby.”
“Th-thank you. Oh, here’s my stop.” He reached up and pulled the cord.
It wasn’t his stop but that didn’t matter; all that mattered was getting the fuck off this Twilight Zone express before Rod Serling got on.
Robert disembarked about six blocks from his house.
As he made his way home he took care to touch as many things as possible to make sure, to be absolutely certain, that this was the world he knew and that everything in it was real, was solid—buildings, mailboxes, store windows, streetlight posts, anything at all (he even found himself stamping on the ground a few times to clear away the snow and make sure the sidewalk was still under his feet); he didn’t just look at people as they went passed him, he studied them with an intensity that was probably a little frightening from the receiving end, but he had to study them in this way, you see, because at any second any one of them might turn around and call him Willy and tear away the mask...but none did. There was one instance, though, when a little girl and her parents passed Robert while he was crossing the street. The parents, normal-enough looking, in their mid-to-late thirties, typical citizens of Generica, walked on either side of their daughter, each holding one of her hands, each with that tired, vacant, glassy, it’s-been-too-long-a-day stare. The girl looked to be around eleven or twelve, most of her face hidden under a heavy winter cap and behind a thick wool scarf. Only her eyes were visible. Robert could feel her stare even before he passed the family.
No, it wasn’t his imagination—she was staring at him, unblinkingly and intensely. He stared back at her as they moved past each other, then, once across the street, turned to see if she was—
—yes, there she was, walking along with her parents, but her head turned so that she could watch him until either he or she moved out of visible range. Robert remained where he was, tracking her until the family reached a corner and began to turn. That’s when the little girl pulled her hands from her parents’ grips, turned fully around to face Robert, and waved at him—
—the kind of wave that, between friends, says, We have a secret, you and I.
Then she pulled down her scarf so her mouth could be seen and mouthed the words, “You’re a good boy.”
Robert ran the last two-and-a-half blocks to h
is house.
Chapter 2
In the basement, on Denise’s worktable, two dolls had been removed from inside the Cathy Pope matryoshka: one depicted the young woman Robert saw on the bus (that is, if he’d actually taken the bus, if he’d actually seen her, if the two young men and elderly couple and bus driver had actually been part of the world and not something he hallucinated then, yes, this was an excellent reproduction of her features); the other wore the face of the little girl who would not stop staring at him.
After finding these, Robert didn’t even bother to search the house for whoever had painted them.
He did, however, search through the liquor cabinet, and by the time NOVA began on the local PBS station he wasn’t exactly drunk, mind you, but any sort of movement beyond shifting his weight in the chair was not something he cared to attempt.
So there he sat, a bottle of Bailey’s Irish Creme on one side, a plate of homemade cookies on the other (he was amazed that the cookies had lasted this long; he must remember to ask for the recipe if he ever found who baked them).
He’d had no intention of watching the program—he’d just been flipping around with the remote in hopes of finding some rerun of a mindless sitcom (Where’s Laverne and Shirley or Hogan’s Heroes when you need them? he thought. Nick at Nite, why hast thou forsaken me?) when he came upon the promo —“‘Mysteries of Regeneration,’ on the next NOVA”—and something hiding in the back of his brain whispered Watch this and he obeyed.
In Silent Graves Page 20