Mr. X

by Peter Straub

  There came the familiar sense of wrongness, of dislocation. In a miasma of horse dung, beer, and sewage, Fish Lane tilted up and down like a seesaw. When my vision cleared, I was lying on my back a few yards beyond the entrance to a tavern. About twice the usual number of stars blanketed the night sky. I lifted my head and saw Joe Staggers struggling onto his hands and knees. I knew what I was going to do to him even before the tavern door opened upon a grim knot of men in worn jackets and thick caps. An amazed and sinister chuckle spread through them. One of the men came toward us, and two or three others followed. Staggers sank onto his heels and raised his knife.

  It would never have occurred to him that his clean shirt, his sturdy yellow Timberlands, his fresh haircut denied him sympathy from the men before us. He did not look rich, but he looked richer than they were. Waving his knife made it worse. He swiveled his head to look at me, and the pain and confusion in his eyes nearly made me pity him. “Where the hell are we?” Most of the men standing at the entrance to the bar pulled out knives of their own.

  One of the men moved away from the others. The ripped pockets of his jacket flopped like rabbit ears. A rough voice said, You got that one, Bumpy.

  I threw the pistol down the lane and heard it skittering over the cobbles. Bumpy took another step, and I did what I had to do.

  Darkness stretched out on either side. My head pounded, and sweat ran down my face. Abandoned buildings and boarded windows looked down in calm silence. I pushed myself upright and smelled cordite. Down at the crossing of the lanes, two drunks goggled at me from beneath a street lamp. A siren wailed on Word Street. “He ran down there,” I shouted, pointing to the far end of Fish Lane. The drunks turned unsteadily around, and I raced into the darkness.

  98

  Mr. Spaulding’s hearse preceded Clark’s gleaming Buick on the way to Little Ridge, and I followed both, headlights on. Through the gates we went and over the crunching gravel to a narrow drive that ribboned past orderly headstones. The hearse glided to a stop beside a little rise, and Clark and I swung in behind it. We all got out of our vehicles. It was a fine, sunny morning without too much humidity. In their dark print dresses and lace collars, Nettie and May could have been a pair of deacons’ wives. In his eggplant-colored suit, white shirt with a Mr. B collar, black necktie, and a chocolate brown, wide-brimmed fedora, Clark looked more elegant than I had ever seen him. A carpet of artificial grass the bright green of Astro Turf lay over the mound of earth soon to be muscled back into the ground by the yellow bulldozer parked further along the asphalt ribbon. On the other side of the open grave stood a device like a forklift with metal uprights and protruding braces. Two cemetery employees squatted in the shade of the bulldozer.

  Clark adjusted the angle of his fedora. “I’ve been thinking about your mother day and night, son. I’m happy I lived long enough to pay her my respects.”

  “Uncle Clark,” I said, “it wouldn’t be the same without you.”

  Mr. Spaulding and three black-suited assistants slid the coffin out of the hearse and carried it up the hill. In the sunlight, the coffin gleamed an odd yellow-bronze. The smooth contours and rounded edges made it look like an object meant to be shot into outer space.

  “Those brass handles will last forever,” Clark said.

  I helped May uphill as she muttered about the heat. Spaulding’s assistants eased the coffin onto the armature over the rectangular space in the ground. A stocky man in a black robe and gold-rimmed glasses unfolded his hands from the leather-bound Bible on his belly and introduced himself as the Reverend Gerald Swing.

  “Are other mourners expected?” he asked.

  “Here’s one now,” I said. A dented old Volvo wagon was pulling up behind my car. Reverend Swing strolled to the head of the open grave and went into a contemplative trance.

  May said, “I told Joy about that money Toby left us. It seems she feels that Clarence should be placed in a nursing home.”

  “I’ll try to find a place for him before I leave, but if I can’t, you and Aunt Nettie will have to do it.”

  “Son,” May said, “when are we supposed to get those checks?”

  “Maybe three weeks,” I said.

  “This outfit looks pretty smart, if I say so myself,” Clark said. His voice trembled. “Your mother held the opinion that I was a handsome man.” I peered under the brim of his hat and saw tears leaking from his eyes.

  Suki Teeter came swinging uphill in a voluminous black pants suit, sunglasses, and a black hat the size of a sombrero.

  “There’s that girl who came to the hospital,” May said.

  “Ned gave her a fortune, but I will never understand why,” Nettie said.

  “It was a lot less than I gave you and May,” I said.

  “Neddie,” May asked, “what in the world did you give us?”

  Suki silenced whatever I might have said by wrapping her arms around me and bringing the golden haze of her face to mine. “Thank you, thank you, thank you. I’m stunned!”

  I kissed her cheek. “I’m glad I could help,” I said.

  “Let’s get together afterward.”

  Clark raised the brim of his hat a quarter of an inch and lowered it again. “Nice of you to pay your respects, Miss. I compliment you on your appearance, which is most attractive.”

  “I could say the same for yours, kind sir.”

  Clark displayed a magnificent sneer and crowned his glory by removing from his breast pocket a pair of oversized, black-framed sunglasses I thought I had seen on Mr. Spaulding’s desk that morning, snapping out the temples with the same wrist-flick the late Joseph Staggers had used to open his knife, then mounting them on his nose. He looked a bit like an ancient Tonton Macoute.

  In a close-fitting black suit that made the most of her legs, Rachel Milton emerged from a white BMW. Her sunglasses surpassed even Clark’s or, as I suspected, Mr. Spaulding’s. Rachel moved gracefully up the rise and embraced me. “Dear Ned, I’m so sorry. We’ll get together later?”

  I introduced her to the aunts and to Clark, who tipped his hat with a lady-killer’s polished charm.

  Nettie scowled at me. “I don’t know how we can get your Uncle Clarence into a decent nursing home. We’re two old ladies almost in need of one ourselves.”

  Rachel took the hint and moved away. I said something reassuring to Nettie, watching Rachel Milton’s uncertain approach to Suki. After a moment of suspicion, Suki swept forward, and the two women fell into each other’s arms.

  Lurking at the head of the grave, Reverend Swing questioned me with a glance. I nodded. The reverend coughed forcefully into his fist and opened his Bible to gaze at the text as if for spiritual refreshment. Then he slammed it shut.

  “We gather here today to mark the passing from this earthly realm of Valerie Dunstan, known to her beloved family and friends as Star, and to commend her soul to the Lord.” It was as though he had flipped a switch and brought into play a bass-baritone richer, more vibrant, and louder than his normal speaking voice.

  I looked along the rise to a grove of maple trees, then behind us, but did not see Robert.

  Although Reverend Swing had been denied the honor of personal acquaintanceship with Valerie Dunstan, these few minutes with the bereaved family had proved to him that Star Dunstan—to use that sweet sobriquet—had been a loving mother, a loving daughter to her mother, and a devoted niece to her aunts and uncles. Reverend Swing knew that Star Dunstan had packed thousands of nourishing peanut-butter-and-jelly, tuna-fish, and egg salad sandwiches into the lunch box her son Ned carried to school. Reverend Swing knew that she had spent many nights by little Ned’s bedside while he ran temperatures and suffered childhood’s illnesses. She spent hours washing and ironing his school clothes. Star had assisted her son’s struggles with multiplication and long division; she had aided his research into historical periods for his little papers; he could not help but wonder if together they had investigated the glories of Jerusalem and the Holy Lands, which the Reverend Swing
had been privileged to visit in the company of his wife and helpmeet, Mrs. Violetta Puce Swing.

  Nettie and May were nodding away like robots, and I managed to keep from laughing. I wondered if Star had ever seen a lunch box. She had never made a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich in her life, and the only clothes she ever ironed were the dresses she wore onstage. I looked down the ridge and saw Robert, in a blue suit identical to mine, leaning against a maple in the grove. The white-hot memory of our encounter in the Anscombe house and our union into one being shivered through me. Tears burned in my eyes.

  Reverend Swing intoned, “This young man’s mother, the niece of the noble women I see before me, sought daily inspiration in the pages of a book that had a special place in her good and simple heart.”

  In spite of the absurdity of Swing’s portrait of Star, somehow also because of that absurdity, the emotions evoked by Robert’s appearance flowed into my grief for my mother, ripping in half a thick wall of matter extending from breastbone to spine in the middle of my chest. I began to sob. Everyone present, including the reverend, stared at me, but instead of embarrassment, I felt the deep, two-sided current of human life at work in me again; I felt more than ever like my mother’s son.

  The next time I looked at the maple grove, Robert was gone.

  Reverend Swing commended Valerie “Star” Dunstan to the earth from whence she had come and invited us to rejoice in the ascent of her soul. I liked the first half of that sentence. I liked it a lot. Let us commend Star Dunstan to the earth, if that was from whence she had come. It was certainly where she was going, so let us commend her to it anyway, adorned in her best black dress and her good pearl earrings, unless the aunts had twinkled them away on the grounds that pearls served the living better than the dead. Let us hope that the earth might treat her with its customary kindly regard, let us trust that whatever was not to be buried within Mr. Spaulding’s gleaming space capsule would find the peace it deserved, whether in the paradise recommended by Reverend Swing or in realms unknown to him.

  Swing crooned a beautiful bass-baritone prayer. One of Mr. Spaulding’s assistants pulled cosmetic sheets of Astro Turf from the grave, and another glided to the machine and pushed a button. Star’s coffin sank into the trench and almost soundlessly came to rest.

  Clark said, “Gerry Swing tells the people what they want to hear.”

  He and the aunts moved a short way down the slope. The atmosphere had loosened and relaxed as it widened out to include the rest of the landscape. The concentrated group of mourners separated again into individuals. The bulldozer cleared its throat. I started walking toward Suki Teeter and Rachel Milton, and a large figure in gold-rimmed spectacles and a black robe appeared beside me.

  In his vibrant sermon voice, Reverend Swing said, “I felt I knew your dear mother as well as if she had been a member of my congregation.”

  “Thank you, Reverend.” I gave him a fifty-dollar bill, which sailed beneath his robe.

  “You were moved by my evocation of your mother’s spirit.”

  “Reverend, my mother would have laughed her head off at the part about the sandwiches, but it was lovely anyhow.”

  Still pressing on the organ pedals, Swing said, “I know your mother was a good Christian.”

  “She loved Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald, and she sang in clubs,” I said. “Does that count? In her own way, she was a fantastic mother.”

  Swing clapped his hand on my back and laughed. In his real voice, he said, “Know the trouble with gigs like this? They never give you enough information. If Will Spaulding had told me your mother was a singer, I could have done five minutes on Billie and Ella to make the people bawl their eyes out. Would have been a memorable funeral.”

  “It was probably just as memorable this way,” I said.

  He wandered down the slope, uttering benedictions. Nettie instantly sailed in front of me, May at her side. “The reverend has a beautiful speaking voice,” said Nettie, “but I would not choose to listen to it night and day. And he did not know beans about Star, although he was very complimentary to May and me.”

  “I expect the reverend brought Violetta Puce to the Holy Land in hopes of losing her over there,” said May. “Are you coming home with us, Neddie?”

  “I’ll drop in later,” I said.

  “Going off with the ladies, I expect,” said Clark, sauntering up. “The reverend did us proud, but Star would have wanted him to mention her devotion to me, too. The apple of her eye, I was.”

  99

  Suki glowed at me from beside the BMW, and Rachel said, “Star and I used to get together at our old place, Brennan’s. Grennie Milton certainly wasn’t going to walk in. I know it’s a little early for lunch, but all I’ve had today was a cup of yogurt at seven-thirty.”

  “I never had breakfast at all,” I said.

  “I just got up,” Suki said. “Brennan’s is right around the corner from me, and I haven’t been there in centuries. It’ll be like going back in time.”

  “They still have that picture,” Rachel said.

  “Ned, you have no idea what you’re in for. Do you know how to find it? Doesn’t matter, just follow us.”

  “I know Brennan’s,” I said. “But I’ll follow you anyhow.”

  Suki wafted up to her car. Rachel said, “Is one of Star’s aunts worried about placing someone in a nursing home?”

  “Aunt Joy’s husband, Clarence Crothers,” I said. “He’s in an advanced stage of Alzheimer’s.”

  “Grenville put me on the board of Mount Baldwin, the best elder-care facility in southern Illinois. I could call Liz Fanteen, the director, this afternoon and settle the whole thing in five minutes. Is Clarence ready to be admitted?”

  “He has ripened on the vine, if that’s what you mean.”

  “I’ll take care of it after lunch. That’s a promise.”

  100

  Rachel parked in front of the Irish bar on Fairground Road, and Suki and I found spaces around the corner. When I got out of my car, she was standing on the sidewalk, looking at me a little shyly. “I haven’t thanked you enough for your generosity. It’s amazing, Ned. You don’t even really know me.”

  “It was supposed to be Star’s money. She would have done exactly the same.”

  Suki put her arm through mine. “That’s the only thing that makes me feel right about accepting the money, even though I can’t afford to turn it down. I just want you to know how grateful I am.”

  We filed into a long, dark interior with a polished mahogany bar on one side and wooden booths on the other, which opened into a dining room. A big man with graying temples smiled at us from behind the bar.

  “Mrs. Milton,” he said. “Haven’t seen you in a long time.” His eyes met mine for a moment before he glanced at Suki and returned to Rachel. “Would you and your friends like a table in the back?” He gave Suki another glance, and his eyes softened. His entire face opened into a smile. “What do you know, Suki Teeter has come back to Brennan’s. As beautiful as ever, too.”

  “Bob Brennan, you’re just like your father,” she said.

  “You were a great crowd. Will Star Dunstan be joining you?”

  A needle traveling at the speed of light went through my heart.

  Rachel said, “We just came from her funeral. This is her son, Ned.”

  “No,” Brennan said, shocked. “That’s terrible. I’m sorry for your loss, Ned.” He reached across the bar and engulfed my hand. “My dad always liked having your mother in the place, and I did, too. Let’s set you up in back, and we’ll get you anything you like.”

  He seated us and handed out menus. “The first drink is on the house.”

  “I’ll have a Manhattan, please, and thank you, Bob.”

  “Same here,” said Suki.

  “Is that what she used to drink here?” I asked.

  “One Manhattan, light on the vermouth, straight up,” Brennan said. I ordered one, and he went back into the bar.

  Suki examin
ed the walls. “This is spooky. Bob looks just like his father.”

  “We have to show Ned the picture,” Rachel said.

  “If you can stand it, I can,” Suki said. “Come on. Time for your history lesson.” She led me to the back wall.

  Rachel said, “God, would you look at us?”

  Just above eye level hung a picture of ten young women and two young men ranged along the bar in summery clothing. Unforced happiness shone from their faces. Radiantly beautiful, Star smiled out from between a stunning young Suki Teeter and an equally stunning young Rachel Newborn.

  “Wow,” I said. Wow pretty much summed up my response. “This was your group?”

  “Most of us.” Rachel named the girls in the photograph: “Sarah Birch, Nanette Bridge, Tammy Wackford, Avis Albright, Zelda Davis. Mei-Liu Chang, next to Sammie Schwartz. And that girl who got high on Benzedrine inhalers and talked in rhymes.”

  “Georgy-Porgy,” Suki said. “She just published her second novel, she’s got two kids, no husband, and she’s the most satisfied person you ever saw in your life. I hate her guts.”

  I asked what had happened to some of the others. Zelda Davis won a fellowship to Harvard and worked for the State Department. Sammie Schwartz had run off with a Hell’s Angel and now taught third grade in Arizona. Nanette Bridge was a partner in a Wall Street law firm. Moongirl Thompson had disappeared, literally, after telling her boyfriend she was going to take a walk up the beach.

  Brennan brought in the drinks and took our orders: a salad for Rachel, hamburgers and fries for Suki and me.

  “Remember Sujit? Remember the Big Indian?”

  “Could I forget them?” Suki said. “When Sujit went back to Bombay, she created a huge national scandal. Two or three cabinet members had to resign. The Big Indian makes avantgarde films. Her real name is Bertha Snowbird.”

  “I’ve seen some of Bertha Snowbird’s films,” I said. “She’s really good. Which one is she?”