In the dark, I wonder about all the other things from the trunk. The dining-room chairs that are in my house right now look just like the old one that I had been sitting in at the table, but they also look like the new ones that Ray made. We have a new wooden bench out on the front porch instead of the broken, old, plastic one. Now I remember why Mommy looked funny sitting on it right after Ray finished it late one afternoon. There is a picture in one of the empty bedrooms that shows my great grandmother as a little girl sitting on a bench that looks just like it, and I remember before Ray came I asked Mommy what happened to it, and Mommy told me that my grandmother got mad one night, and she dragged it out into the front yard and set it on fire. I look at all the mommies and daughters and babies, and wonder how even though some of them wear clothes that people were wearing when I was a baby, and some of them wear clothes that people wore when our house was new, none of them are too tall or too short to fit in my house. Some of them are cracked and have peeling paint, but all their bases are the same, and they all stand the same way.
Then I take out the daddies. There aren’t many of them. I take them and put them side by side on the floor in front of the chest. I can see a little better in the dark now, and it’s easy to see that they look alike. One daddy in a white shirt and pants with suspenders has a hammer in his hand, and he’s smiling just like the daddy in the lumberjack shirt with the cap on his head and the ax. The daddy that wears the overalls has a saw with a funny handle, and it’s the same saw that the daddy with the bell bottoms and headband carries.
They all have the same face, skinny with happy eyes. They all look like little boys with grown up bodies.
He smiles at me, like we’re sharing a secret. I didn’t hear him come into the attic but he’s crouching down next to me and smiling. He has something in his hand, and he puts it next in line in the row of daddies. It has on patched blue jeans and a tee shirt, and a metal triangle in its hand. It’s smiling, like it wants to eat me.
He takes my hand and lifts me up so fast that we’re going down the attic stairs right away. The hall and the rooms go by in a blur as he pulls me behind him without saying a word, my feet barely touching the floor. I want to believe that I’m imagining all this, and that I can just open my eyes and be back in my bed, but I know I can’t. I’m afraid.
In my bedroom he picks me up and puts me in my bed. For a long time he just stands there, looking at me and chewing on his lips. I wonder if my mom was scared like this.
Then he gets my chair from in front of my house and sits down. He leans close and whispers to me in the half-darkness.
“I bet you’re thinking, aren’t you? I knew the first minute I saw you that you could think things through like your mom never could. I used to know your mom, a long time ago. She used to be able to think pretty good, but nothin’ like you can, I bet.
“Can I tell you a story? I’m not much good at makin’ em’ up, but that doesn’t mean I can’t tell a good one. I been around a bit longer than you, an’ I’ve seen stuff. The story I’m gonna tell is my favorite one, an’ maybe it’ll be yours too.
“Did you know that little toy house of yours is just as old as this one? It’s true. The man that built this place for your family had a boy, and that boy made it as a present for a girl that he loved more than anything else in the whole world.
“You see, that boy’s family didn’t have much money, but his daddy made sure that they had everything he could give them. He taught him how to carve wood and put on paint too, so that when one of them broke he could just find a good piece of wood and fix it or make another. That way he always had the same toys, no matter what.”
“What sort of toys?”
“He made his boy the best-looking set of toy soldiers you’ve ever seen, all standing up straight in gray coats with long rifles and sharp bayonets.” Ray smoothed down the sheets by my side.
“One day, his daddy started working for a rich man. The man had fought in the war and his old house had gotten burned up, but that was okay, because he still had lots of money for a new one. He hired the boy’s daddy to make it, and every day the boy went with him to help. That’s where he met the man’s daughter.
“Oh, she was pretty—”
“Pretty how?”
“Well, she had long blonde hair that was all twisted up into lots and lots of little curls. The first time that boy saw her, you know what he did?”
I shake my head.
“He forgot that he was supposed to be leading the mule while it pulled the scrap wagon, and that mule kicked him clean off his feet and into the mud. Everyone laughed at him, even his daddy, who probably knew why his boy had lost his head for a minute. But that girl didn’t laugh. She walked right over to him wearing her pretty white dress and asked him if he wanted her to have her butler fetch him a bucket of water so he could wash off, then she smiled at him, and oh golly, all he could hear was angels singing.
“Pretty soon the boy was sneaking away from the work whenever he could, just so he could see that pretty girl. She’d bring something fancy for lunch and the boy would bring the knife that his daddy had given him and he’d carve a new toy for the little girl. It took well over a year to build a house back then, so they got to know each other pretty good.
“A lot of things were different back then. The boy was only sixteen, but that was old enough in those days to have a home and a family. The girl was a little bit younger than he was, but she loved him just as much as he loved her, and when two people love each other, there’s nothing wrong with anything that they do. You still get mad about me sleepin’ in your mom’s bed, but sometimes grown-ups do that when they’re around each other a lot, ’cause it’s nice, and ’cause sometimes the world just seems like it’s got nothing but pain in it. They do it when they love each other, too, only then it’s extra special. You’re still a little too young to understand, but you’ll be old enough real soon.”
“You’re talking sex—”
“Shh,” Ray’s finger is on my lips, shushing me. His touch is too warm and pressed down hard enough to keep my head still. But I don’t whimper.
“That boy was gonna do the right thing, too. He was going to make that girl his wife and find a place somewhere where he could build a house just for her and they could be together and have lots of babies. So when that big house was finished, he put on his Sunday best and went callin’ to see her folks. He went in there with his head held high and his hat in his hand, and he asked to see the man of the house and his wife. In the parlor he explained to them both how he felt about their daughter and asked for their permission to marry her.
“Now her father was a great man. You could tell that just by bein’ in the room with him. He’d fought in the war, and looking at him, you felt like you were looking at a king. But he was old, older than he should’ve been. Sometimes stuff scared him that a grown man wouldn’t be scared of, so maybe some things he’d seen in the war had scared him so bad, he was still afraid of them. If you wanted to say good morning to him or talk to him about cornbread fresh out of the oven, he’d give you a smile that made you feel warm inside, and he’d talk to you like he didn’t have any more money than you. But if you needed to talk to him about serious stuff, stuff that you had to think about for a bit or you might be a year or two down the road before you woke up and figured out you’d made a mistake, then he might need to sit down for a bit and talk about somethin’ else. Asking him what was wrong only made it worse, and if you did that he’d turn his head like he was looking out the window so you couldn’t see how he looked like he was going to cry.
“His wife was the one who stepped in an’ made sure the work got done. She could read and write, and she wasn’t afraid to get her hands dirty or to call a man out. When the boy explained his intentions, you know what she did? She smiled at him like he was already a part of the family. She asked him to join her in the family room, to have a seat in one of the chairs that he’d helped peg together and had her man bring them both some
cold lemonade from the kitchen.”
I wanted to ask him to get me a glass of lemonade. No, water. I felt something like thirst.
“Oh she was just as nice as she could be to the boy. She asked him about how long he had worked with his daddy, about what he liked to do, about how his family lived, and about what kind of plans he had for the future. She sat there smilin’ and listenin’ to him go on about what it was like to set out before sun up with an ax over your shoulder, about how you had to cut oak different than you cut pine, and how he thought it would be great to get some of that free land everyone was talkin’ about and get a house built, if he could find a piece with good trees on it. She listened and smiled and kept askin’ questions while he sat there and laid everything out, and then she asked him where her daughter was going to fit into these plans of his.
“It didn’t matter what he said, or how many different ways he tried to explain it to her, her mind was already made up. It had probably been made up before he ever said a word. When he tried to tell her about swappin’ mesquite wood to butchers for smoking and getting some good beef in return, she let him know that she was seeing that her daughter got a taste for oranges, ’cause they were good for her complexion. She asked him where he got the clothes he was wearing, and how he was going to afford satin dresses and silk petticoats for her little girl because she just couldn’t wear any other kind. Then she started talkin’ about French tutors and music lessons and a hundred other things that made that boy’s head ache. She kept talkin’ on and on, and she didn’t want to hear that boy explaining how stuff like that didn’t matter, that he loved that girl and that he just wanted to marry her.
“You know, it doesn’t matter what all they talked about, or didn’t talk about that afternoon. What matters is what happened, and nothin’ that happened that afternoon was any good, for anyone. That same man who’d brought that boy some lemonade in a pretty glass, who’d smiled at him and said ‘good morning’ to him every day for almost a year ended up throwin’ him outta the house after givin’ him a black eye and a bloody nose. The girl’s family went back on their word and wouldn’t pay the boy’s daddy all that they owed him for building their nice house. They started tellin’ lies to everyone for miles around about that boy treating their daughter like she was his wife when she didn’t want him to.
“Back then you couldn’t have folk’s thinkin’ you’re the sort to do things like that. It wasn’t like it is today where people would just get the police and let them handle it. They might send for the sheriff, or they might just all get together and come take it outta your hide. Maybe they’d burn you with hot tar, or maybe they’d just string you up from a tall tree. That boy had to leave, even though it made him and his mom and dad sadder than they’d ever been in their whole lives.”
“Did he leave?”
Ray frowned and nodded. He looked as if he was ready to cry.
“He left, all right. Left his family, and his toys, and the home he’d lived in his whole life. But that night he came back into town and he snuck up to the new house by the road and into the girl’s room, and they were together one last time. He talked to her for a long while, and he promised that someday he’d be back.
“It wasn’t easy for that boy, goin’ out on the road and finding a new life, but he was young, strong, and he wasn’t afraid of work. He took a few tools with him, and after a while he got a few more. He lived as good as a boy on his own could, and sometimes it seemed like the days just dragged on, and sometimes he’d blink his eyes and a year would be gone.
“One day, he was back in the same town that he’d been born in. It wasn’t anything that he’d planned, but the last man he’d worked for had told him that the folks there needed a sawyer who could work their new bandsaws. The man with the saw turned out to be one of the people who’d worked for the girl’s family, and you know what? He didn’t even look twice at the boy. He just asked if he could run the saw and then put him to work. People are funny like that, sometimes. They try to keep a face in their head, and the harder they try, the more they lose it. That’s why your mom acts like she never knew me ’fore I walked up to the front gate, probably.
“After a few days, the boy went to the house that he had helped build, asking if they needed any work done around the place, and you know what he found there? There was no more mother to toss him out, and there was no more sad father to talk to, either.”
“Where did they go?”
Ray brushed my hair. “The lady who lived in the house was nice, and she seemed a little lonely. She had a daughter, too. She was a beautiful little girl who the boy could recognize in a second. He didn’t ask about her father. It wasn’t nice to do that in those days.
“So he lived there for a while, he got to know the woman pretty well, and he got to know that sweet young girl. He helped out around the house, which was good, ’cause no one knew that house like he did, and he had to fix a couple of things that other folks had changed. He passed the time working just as hard as he ever had, and when the little girl was old enough he told her that he loved her, and that he wanted her to marry him and stay with him forever. She loved him, too, and the boy thought he’d finally be able to have a family of his own. But the girl’s mother got mad at him and made him leave the house. It wasn’t as bad as the other time, but she was really mad and screamed a lot of bad words at him. The boy wasn’t mad at her, ’cause he knew she was just mad because she didn’t understand how much he loved her daughter.
“He traveled around again for a while, but you already know that he went back to the house. He had promised the girl he loved that they would be together, and it didn’t matter how many times he had to leave, he’d always come back to find her, and he always found her at the house.”
My mouth is dry, but I still say it. “He’d get old. Every time he came back he’d have to be older than he was before. He couldn’t just stay a boy, and it couldn’t be the same girl after that much time.”
Ray stops looking at me and moves his eyes just a bit, like he’s looking at something that isn’t there anymore. Then he looks at me again and smiles.
“But he didn’t get older, Becky. He just kept sawing wood and making things, and doing the things that grown-ups do, and when he came back to the house he found his girl again. He loved her, and when two people love each other, everything always turns out right.”
He stands up and smiles again. He’s a little farther away now and I know he’s not going to hurt me.
“Look at me, sittin’ here ready to talk all night. Sometimes I forget that you’re just a little girl, Becky. You’ve got a bit of growin’ to do yet, and you need all the sleep that you’re supposed to have. I’ll let you settle down, and in the morning I’ll let your mom know that things are all better ’tween the two of us.”
I roll over away from him. I don’t want there to be a tomorrow, or a day after. I don’t even hear him move but I feel his breath on my cheek, and I feel his hand on me.
“I was going to save this for later, but I think you should have it now. I made it so you can know just how pretty I think you are.”
He puts something in my hand, and then I hear him close the door. I’m afraid that if I turn around, I’ll see him still in my room. But I have to know, and when I look he’s gone.
There’s still enough light from the window to see what he gave me, and it is pretty. It’s just as pretty as Victoria Lee is, even though I don’t see how he could have made a figure of me and have made it pretty. He made my eyes look like Mommy’s. I look at it and I wonder if there was once a real girl who looked like Victoria Lee, and if she ever lived in my room.
I try to sleep, but I can’t. I have Victoria Lee in one hand and the figure of me in the other, and for a moment I’m not sure which one is which. Then I remember what Ray’s hand felt like on my left hand, and I know that’s where the figure of me is, and my thumb rubs it again.
It has breasts.
Winter
Michelle Sagar
a
Bars were the terrain through which he hunted best.
This hadn’t always been the case, but now, with the traffic of busy lives in the press of cities that held more people than any other time in history, the bars were the places where misery gathered. Forced joviality mingled with smoke, tears, and games of desire. He watched, wreathed in shadow, safe in his distance. There were some who gathered here who did not belong: those naïve enough to think that the forced joviality represented anything real.
He liked to observe; he spent days gathering information from the contours of the faces he watched. Each line, each dip of lid or brow, each quirk of lip, telegraphed information about the wearer.
He watched now, although business called. There, at the bar, a man and woman, names unknown, faces distinctly familiar, were beginning an argument. This argument he’d seen before, countless times, among different people; in fact, he had started this one, whispering the name of a woman in the woman’s ear and letting it take root in suspicion and insecurity. He caught the glint of pink light on her cheeks and knew that it wasn’t the neon. Smiling, he cast his glance, like anew, across the room.
Because, of course, this was his business. He was expected, like any laborer, to produce. If he didn’t, he would be recalled, and he had grown, as any man, comfortable in his job and his surroundings.
Comfortable enough that the ordinary bored him. What had once been good enough was now inferior, unacceptable. He could not be rushed beyond a certain point, and he had taken pains to make this clear: His was a work of craftsmanship, yes, but it was also a work of art. None who had seen the results could argue this.
Well, no, perhaps one could. But that was long ago, and the criticism, barely remembered, had lost its sting.
Handsome Devil: Stories of Sin and Seduction Page 31