The Dispatcher

by Jahn, Ryan David

  Was bright.

  It is now after noon and, though it is still daytime, the sun is on the other side of the house and sinking toward the horizon.

  When the sun’s light cuts into the room she stands in it. She stands in it as long as possible, moving as the light moves across the floor, but the sun is gone so she is merely sitting on the mattress in the corner of the room with her knees drawn up and her arms wrapped around them. A book sits on the mattress beside her—sometimes Donald brings her books and even gives her lessons—but she does not feel like reading right now.

  ‘Borden?’ she says to the shadows, but there is no response.

  So she counts. One two three four five six seven eight. She likes to count. When she is not counting all sorts of terrible thoughts enter her mind and make her stomach feel sour. Even reading cannot always keep out the thoughts. But when she counts she can keep them out by filling her mind with numbers. Not at first: the small numbers are too easy, they don’t require full concentration, and bad thoughts can still snake their way into her mind between them. But once she counts high enough, two thousand twenty-three, two thousand twenty-four, the numbers are big enough to fill her head and nothing else can squeeze in. Everything goes quiet inside her and she does not feel afraid.

  She’s only up to three hundred and seventeen when Beatrice comes downstairs to collect her lunch plate. It is sitting empty on the small card table at which she usually eats her meals. Sometimes Borden will sit across from her while she eats and they’ll talk about things, though she can never really remember any of their conversations, and he has never eaten any of the food she has offered.

  Three hundred and—

  The door at the top of the stairs creaks open and Beatrice’s large frame fills the doorway. She flips a switch. A yellow bulb hanging from a brown wire in the middle of the basement comes to life. It chases away the shadows, filling the room with pale light. Maggie squints and watches Beatrice make her way down the stairs. First she steps down with her right foot, and then follows with her left, setting it next to the other. Once her feet are side by side again she pauses to breathe. Then she progresses once more with her right foot.

  ‘How are you, Sarah?’ she says once she gets to the bottom of the stairs.

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Good.’

  Maggie says nothing.

  ‘Do you want me to brush your hair for a while before I do the dishes?’

  ‘ No.’

  ‘Do you want to brush my hair?’

  ‘ No.’

  ‘Are you feeling okay?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Okay.’

  Beatrice walks to the card table and collects the empty plate. It is white with blue flowers and vines decorating its edge. Maggie hates it.

  ‘You ate all your food.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am. Thank you.’

  ‘I wish you wouldn’t call me ma’am.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘I wish you would call me Momma.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘You always say okay, but you never do it.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Okay.’

  Beatrice turns around and heads back up the stairs. When she reaches the landing she pulls open the door and turns to face Maggie again.

  ‘We’re having meatloaf for dinner. With lots of grated carrots, like you like.’

  Then she flips off the light, steps through the door, and pulls it closed. But Maggie does not hear the click of it latching, nor does she hear the sound of the deadbolt sliding into place. She sits and waits and listens, but she hears nothing.

  After a moment she gets to her feet and pads barefoot to the bottom of the stairs. She looks up to the top of them. A sliver of light cutting its way into the darkness between the door and the wall. The steps at the top are visible in the light, rounded and worn smooth by shoes sliding up and down them, a few rusty nail heads jutting up.

  ‘Borden,’ she says. ‘Borden, it’s open.’

  Something within her shifts. A long eclipse of the sun ends and light comes into her.

  Even before she knows what she’s doing, even before instinct becomes thought, her heart begins to thump and her mouth goes dry. Her hands form fists on either side of her. The fists grip the fabric of her dress tight within them. She steps up, her bare feet moving one at a time from the cold smooth concrete floor of the basement to a warmer textured surface. The grain of the wood feels good beneath her feet, alive somehow, more part of the outside world than anything else down here.

  She takes another step up, gently rolling the ball of her foot onto the wood and then putting her weight upon it and pushing herself up. The step does not moan in protest as it would were Beatrice putting her weight upon it. It accepts Maggie silently. The only sounds she can hear at all: the muffled vibrations of the television coming through the walls and the rhythmic sound of her heart beating in her chest and ears and temples.

  She takes another step—oh, God, don’t let it make any noise—and that is followed by yet another.

  By the time she reaches the top of the stairs her palms feel itchy and her throat constricted. Her breath wheezes into and out of her through a throat like a kinked garden hose.

  She swallows.

  Then grabs the doorknob. It is cool to the touch and smooth. She pulls. The sliver of light cutting its way into the basement becomes a block of light splashing door-shaped against the wall to her left. The shadow of her arm in relief against the wall.

  On the other side of the door she can see scarred green linoleum flooring, dark cabinets, a laminated kitchen counter piled with filthy dishes. The oven is ancient, and while it once must have been white it is now splattered with all manner of food. The window above the sink is water-spotted. The ceiling is fly-specked.

  A cockroach scrambles from a stack of plates piled like porcelain pancakes and runs across the counter toward the sink, into which it disappears.

  To her left she can hear the television and though she can neither see nor hear them she knows Henry and Beatrice are in there. But then she does hear them. She hears one of them.

  The floor creaks just the other side of the wall.

  She pulls back from the door and eases it shut but for a crack and continues to peer out to the kitchen. Her breath catches in her throat. Her eyes are wide and feel very dry, but she is afraid to blink. Beatrice enters the kitchen. Maggie’s muscles tighten and lock her motionless.

  The woman scratches between her legs through the fabric of her dress as she walks to the stainless steel sink. She turns on the faucet. Pipes rattle and moan. The faucet spits a wad of rusted water, and then flows orange for a moment before going clear. Soon the water is steaming, fogging the window above the sink despite the heat outside.

  Beatrice squirts orange dish soap onto a green scouring sponge, grabs a dirty plate—Maggie’s lunch plate—from a stack of them, holds it under water a moment, and then scrubs at it. Once it’s clean she rinses it and sets it into a rusty dish drainer. She grabs a second plate.

  Her back is to Maggie. Maggie thinks that if she doesn’t get out now she might never get out. The door is unlocked and she’s standing at the threshold. She pulls the door open and simply stands in the doorway a moment. She is waiting to be noticed. Her heart is beating so loud Beatrice almost has to hear it. Except she doesn’t. With her back to Maggie she continues to wash dishes.

  ‘Get back here before she sees you.’

  Maggie jumps and glances over her shoulder.

  Borden stands on a step halfway up the stairs, only his horse’s head in the light, the rest of him hidden in shadows. His eyes are like great pits spooned out with an ice cream scooper. His mouth is covered with a frothy foam.

  Maggie swallows. Then she shakes her head at him. No. I’m not coming back. She turns her back on him. Beatrice is still standing at the sink washing dishes.

  ‘Get back here.’
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  No.

  Though she does not know the layout of the house she knows she cannot go left—the sound of the TV is coming from there—so she turns right and walks as carefully as she can, praying—God, please—that the floor does not creak beneath her feet. One step, two step, red step, blue step.

  Beatrice puts another plate into the dish drainer.

  Ahead of her and to her right a door opening onto a hallway. Old-timey pictures hang crooked on the wall on the other side of the door. A yellow light splashes across them from somewhere. The light is rippled with shadow and reminds her of light reflected off water. She hopes the yellow light is coming from the sun. She hopes she is that close to outside, to the daylight world.

  Another glance toward Beatrice. The woman is picking up a dirty saucepan. It has dried pieces of cabbage sticking to it. Beatrice hums as she scrubs at the pan. Maggie recognizes the tune. Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so. Little ones to Him belong, for we are weak and He is—

  A dog barks. Maggie jumps. A squeal escapes her throat. She slaps her hands—both of them—over her mouth, trying to hold it in, but it is too late. It’s out on the air where Beatrice can hear it.

  She knew there was a dog up here. She has heard its nails clicking on the floor above her head for years. She even knows its name: Buckshot. But until now she has never seen it. It is standing in the doorway toward which she has been walking. It is waist high and the color of tree bark. Its tongue hangs from its mouth and its tail thumps wildly against the doorframe as it wags.

  Beatrice has stopped washing dishes. She now stands looking at Maggie. Her shoulders are slumped and her mouth agape. Her hands hang empty at her sides and drip water onto the dirty green linoleum.

  Buckshot growls and the growl grows slowly into a series of quick barks.

  Maggie jumps again.

  From the basement just other side of the doorway Borden whispers loudly to her: ‘Come back now and you won’t get into trouble.’

  ‘Henry!’ Beatrice says. ‘Henry, she’s got out! Sarah’s got out the basement!’

  Maggie glances behind her but Henry is not there. He will be coming soon. She glances to the doorway where Buckshot stands and blocks her way, his tail thumping and thumping against the wall. He is scruffy and scars line his face and the side of his body, but he is not Henry. She runs toward him. As she runs past he licks her hand and his tail thumps against her hip, but he does not bite, nor does he bark again. She glances right and sees the hallway leading deeper into the house. To her left is a wooden door, the top half filled with yellow pebbled glass which allows the light to come in but does not allow visitors to get a good view of the interior. She grabs the door handle and thumbs down a brass paddle. She pulls.

  A wall of heat greets her and bright sunlight like opening an oven door and finding an entire universe within. Wind blows against her face.

  ‘Sarah, get back here! She’s getting out, Henry!’

  She turns back to the open door. Beatrice’s fingers at the back of her neck. She runs across the porch and leaps, arcing through the air and down onto the gravel driveway. The sharp gray stones dig into the soles of her bare feet. She almost falls, but does not. She looks around, trying to figure out where her best chance lies. To her left, a grazing pasture in which a few cows stand dumbly working their jaws. To her right, woods of hickory and oak and pine. Maybe she can disappear into them. She runs toward the trees.

  Her heart thumps in her chest and her throat feels dry and scratchy, but her skin is hot from the sun, a wonderful feeling, and she is outside outside outside with a hot breeze blowing against her back as she runs, pushing her forward, pushing her toward freedom.

  As she reaches the wall of trees just other side of the driveway she looks back over her shoulder and sees Henry running toward her. Running after her. An old man with his big gut swinging back and forth like the pendulum on a grandfather clock, a few strands of gray comb-over hair blowing in the wind, face a grimace, eyes cruel, bulbous red nose bursting forth like an internal hemorrhage about to rupture.

  ‘You better,’ he says angrily between great heaving breaths, ‘you better stop, Sarah!’ Another breath. ‘You fuckin’ stop!’

  She runs into the woods.

  And through them. Blades of sunlight cutting through the canopy overhead and splashing across her face and legs and arms. The sound of birds singing, then taking flight as she nears. Breeze shuffling through the summer leaves. She is outside. She has escaped. She glances back over her shoulder but sees no one. She is outside. No walls surround her.

  She runs until it hurts to breathe, until the stitch in her side is unbearable, jumping over plants she thinks might be poison oak or poison ivy, ducking beneath thick mustang grape vines that are growing between the tree branches and wrapping themselves around tree trunks. She runs until she has to stop, and then she does stop.

  She stands breathing hard, bending over, hands pressed against her knees. Her throat hurts but it feels good too. Clean hot summer air. Lungfuls of it. She tries to slow her breathing so she can listen. She hears nothing. She hears nothing and she sees nothing behind her.

  Maybe he gave up. Maybe she really is free.

  She walks to a white beam of light breaking through the canopy overhead and she stands within it. An outside observer would see a pale, fragile-looking girl seemingly glowing while everything around her was covered in the shade of trees. An outside observer would see an angel. But there are no outside observers. There is only her and the sunlight and the silence of the woods.

  She allows herself a quiet moment, almost allows herself to cry, and then she pulls herself together again, and continues on. She walks at first, but the walk becomes a jog, and soon enough she is running again.

  Despite the pain it feels good to run. She has spent years trapped in a place where running was impossible and it feels good to have this much space open before her.

  In five minutes she comes to a sun-faded road, cracks twisting their way across its surface like rivers on a map.

  She turns left for no reason she can think of and continues on, padding her way along the asphalt. It feels good on the soles of her feet. It is almost too hot, and if she slowed to a walk it would be too hot, so she does not slow to a walk. She keeps running.

  Henry is watching TV and sucking at a beer like it’s mother’s milk when Beatrice calls to him from the kitchen.

  ‘Henry!’ she says. ‘Henry, she’s got out! Sarah’s got out the basement!’

  ‘Ah, fuck,’ he mumbles to himself. Then gets to his feet, finishes the Budweiser in his hand, showing the bottom of the can to the ceiling, and sets the empty on the coffee table. ‘How the hell’d she get out?’ he says.

  ‘Sarah, get back here!’ Bee says from the kitchen. ‘She’s getting out, Henry!’

  ‘I’m coming.’

  He walks to the kitchen. Beatrice is on the far side of the room facing the open front door. When she hears him she turns around.

  ‘She’s got out.’

  ‘Well, goddamn it.’

  ‘I didn’t mean to let her.’

  ‘Goddamn it.’

  ‘I told you she was getting out.’

  He ignores her and hurries to the front door. Sarah is running barefoot across the gravel driveway. She is running to the woods west of the house.

  Henry jumps down the steps and runs after her, feeling sick to his stomach. He’s too old for this kind of activity. When he catches up with Sarah he’s gonna make her sorry she ran like this. He’s gonna make her sorry she made him run like this. She’ll be screaming sorrys, is what she’ll be doing. She’ll keep screaming them for a week.

  As she reaches the line of trees she glances back.

  ‘You better,’ he says angrily between great heaving breaths, ‘you better stop, Sarah!’ Another breath. He feels like he’s gonna have a heart attack. ‘You fuckin’ stop!’

  He knows she is afraid of him. He’d like it better if she didn’
t have to be afraid of him. He’d like it better if she accepted the fact that she was now part of this family. She’s had a long enough time to get used to it. It would make everybody’s life easier. Including hers. He’d like that; it just ain’t the way it is. But she is afraid of him and she does what he says. So when he shouts at her to stop he fully expects her to comply.

  But she doesn’t. She turns and disappears into the woods.

  ‘Fuck.’

  He runs to the woods and into them.

  He sees flashes of blue dress between the trunks of trees. He chases after that color. Branches scratch at his face and grab at his clothes. He tries to keep her in sight as he runs, but it’s an impossible task. He must pay attention to what he’s doing or he’s liable to run straight into a tree. He loses sight of her. Then another flash of blue thirty or forty yards ahead. He cuts toward her, but the heel of his boot catches on the root of a tree and he falls face first to the ground, getting a mouthful of composted leaves. He spits and picks himself up. He looks to see if she’s still in sight but she is not. He briefly considers chasing after her anyway, but doesn’t think he’ll catch her on foot. But the woods are surrounded by road, and she’ll have to come out of them eventually.

  He turns back and runs toward the house.

  ‘Bee, I need my keys!’

  A moment later Beatrice arrives at the front door.

  ‘Did you get her?’

  ‘No, goddamn it, I need my keys.’

  ‘Your truck keys?’

  ‘Of course my truck keys. All my keys are on the same fucking key ring. Come on.’

  ‘Okay.’

  Beatrice turns from the doorway and disappears a moment. When she returns his keys are dangling from her hand. She throws them toward him, but they land in the gravel five feet shy of their intended destination. Henry curses under his breath, goddamn it, leans down, and snatches them up. He walks to his pickup, a green ’97 Ford Ranger he bought used a couple years ago from Davis Dodge—it’s got a mushy clutch, but you have to expect that kind of thing when you buy your truck used from Todd Davis, Mr Chief of Police, you just might get pulled over less with a Davis Dodge license-plate frame on your vehicle—and slides into the driver’s seat.