The Mammoth Book of Nebula Awards SF

by Kevin J. Anderson

  “Not if you’re a lady,” giggles John-William’s mother, “not ’less you come from the Wilcher branch of the tree.”

  The fan on the counter hum-hums to the left, hum-hums to the right, gives a little jerk and starts back again. John-William’s mother smells Camay soap and Lipton iced tea. Smells meatloaf and pepper and water on the stove. Flour and catsup and old coffee grounds. Summer sucks Oklahoma heat through the open screen door, mingles with the smells from inside. John-William’s mother draws damp hair off her neck, pins it up back. Her dress is stuck to her skin. She pulls at her collar, lets the breeze in. Lord God, too hot for underwear in August. Grandmas and aunts in Shawnee and Maud can keep their corsets and their buttons and their snaps. This is Oke City, and a girl can jiggle what she likes down here.

  John-William’s mother peeks down for a look. They’re still down there, and still looking fine. You can say what you like about your big old melons, sagging on the vine when you’re still eighteen. There’s not a man living doesn’t have a liking for a grown-up woman’s got a pair of thirty-fours poking right up like happy puppy dogs.

  John-William’s mother looks past her pretties, down past her tummy, feels a little shudder, feels a little warm start to grow, thinks, for an instant, why not leave the pot a’bubble, run back to bed and have a little tingle, who’s going to know? Blushes at the image like a movie show flicking in her head, raises the lid off the carrots, which don’t need checking at all . . .

  . . . stops right there, holds the steamy lid in her hand, stops there and listens, hears it coming, hears it on the way, long before it gets there at all. Sets down the lid, drops her apron on a chair, kicks off her flats, and walks out the screen door. The steps are still warm. She pulls up her skirt, leans back against the door. If some old man gets a peek, well maybe she’ll let him have two.

  There’s no wind at all, but it’s better out back than inside.

  Still a little light, but the sky’s turning dull pewter-gray, turning dishwater blue, like the bottom of a worn-out pan. John-William’s mother doesn’t like this time of day, doesn’t now and never did. When she was little on the farm she’d sit on the back porch steps past Mama’s kitchen door. The wood was dull gray, worn by lye soap and long dead years. Sit real still and look past the gravel back yard, past the hen house and the barn, past the smoke house and the dirt storm cellar with its tin door in the ground. Out past the pile where Papa put things he meant to fix, and never did. A plow with no handles, busted wagon wheels, the carcass of a Ford, its rusty hide now a 12-gauge target, fine as Irish lace. Broken shovels, dull washtubs with the bottoms burned out.

  And, past the orchard and the fence and the fields full of rattle-paper corn, to the land that stretched forever to the sky.

  That’s when John-William’s mother sat still as mice and held her breath. Held it, and waited for the last pallid whisper of the light to disappear, waited for the day to give a final sigh and slide away.

  You had to watch close. It happened, just like that, and it was gone. It wasn’t day and it wasn’t night; it was something in between. Every color died and the faraway fields began to smudge against the sky. The barn, the hen house, the rusted-out Ford began to blur, grow faint and indistinct, dull and undefined. The dark descended and sucked the day dry.

  And it was then when John-William’s mother, Betty Ann, heard the great stone clock, felt it strike deep, deep within the earth, felt it beat against her heart. When the time was just right, at the moment in between, she listened, and heard what the clock had come to say . . .

  Not just before, Betty Ann

  And not just after, Betty Ann.

  Not quite day

  And not quite night,

  What it is, Betty Ann,

  Is getting dark again . . .

  That’s when the big clock stopped for a beat, and the world grew silent and still. It seemed to Betty Ann like sorrow had come to stay, as if all the lonely had spilled out from the day. Grandmaw Wilcher said this was the moment dark came to snatch life away. “You can see it if you look real close,” Grandmaw Wilcher said. “You might see a dead bird out in the yard, claw feet stickin’ right up, bill wide open, sucking for a last breath of air. You might see a rock or a stick you was lookin’ right at, and now it’s not there. For a blink, for a wink, you’re seeing things gone, things that were there a minute or so before. It might be a toad, it might be a stone, it might be someone you know.”

  Mama told Betty Ann not to listen to Grandmaw’s trash, said she wasn’t right in the head. And maybe that was so, but every night after, Betty Ann ran back in, safe inside before the night caught her, caught her right between the light and dark, fled to the good smell of cornbread and jelly, to the oilcloth mustard-yellow bright, to the table set with cold ham and beans, the cloth still sticky from the noon summer meal. The kerosene lamp warmed her soul, and her mother brought cool cream butter in a bowl and said, “Time you came in, Betty Ann, it’s getting dark again . . .”

  In spite of the prickly sullen heat, Betty Ann, John-William’s mother, feels a chill. She knows what’s happened. She’s waited just a beat, just a breath too long and the dark has caught her there, standing outside her kitchen door. Caught her as the night swept in and drew its cape across the yard and the trees and the house next door, and nearly got Betty Ann, John-William’s mother, too. John-William’s mother doesn’t even look back. Looking back’s like Grandmaw said, when you saw, from the corner of your eye, things that were missing, things that had been there just a blink before.

  Betty Ann, John-William’s mother, moves quickly inside, shuts the screen door, snaps the latch, stops, pauses just a minute, listens, almost certain she can hear that great stone clock beat down-down-down, deep in the earth and far away.

  Betty Ann checks the meatloaf and the carrots, pulls an Old Gold from the pack on the counter, leans in, and lights it from the stove.

  John-William’s mother, Jack’s wife, Betty Ann, gets a jelly glass of water, reaches past the Sunbeam mixer and flips on the Philco radio, watches the dial begin to glow, settles in a breakfast room chair. Old familiar voices make her smile. The Kingfish tries to talk Andy into some fool scheme. Betty Ann knows exactly what’ll happen next. Andy falls for it, like Andy always does. Amos has to come in and straighten the whole mess out.

  Lord, they were funny. Better than Benny or Fred Allen, either one. Jack wouldn’t listen, wouldn’t stay in the room if they were on. Said they weren’t even coloreds on the show, said niggers weren’t like that at all. Said they stole stuff fast as you could blink, didn’t matter what it was.

  The very next time Betty Ann looks up, the dark has creeped in from outside, hid the catsup and the flour in shadow. All she can see is the dim blue flame below the pot.

  If I had any sense, thinks Betty Ann, I’d’ve opened a can of tuna fish instead of heating up the kitchen on a hot summer night. John-William didn’t care, long as there were cookies or pies or something sweet in the house.

  John-William’s mother thinks he ought to be home right now. She doesn’t like him out at night, but boys didn’t know about the dark, didn’t know what happens out there when the sun goes down and the day hides out of sight.

  Amos ’n’ Andy were gone. The radio plays a song she likes a lot.

  It must have been moonglow,

  Way out to the sea . . .

  She and Jack used to hear it all the time when they’d take his daddy’s big LaSalle out and park. That was when they first began to date, before they even thought about getting married or anything else besides parking, feeling up, and having fun. And even after that, sometimes, before Jack pumped her up like a tub with John-William inside, they’d hear that song and everything would be fine. Betty Ann’s father didn’t trust Jack at all. He knew what they were doing in the back of that LaSalle. Jack didn’t wear overalls, wore a Searsucker suit and a snappy bow tie. He came from Paul’s Valley, which didn’t say much, even for an Oklahoma town. Still, like Betty Ann’
s mother Sarah said, anyone don’t have shit on his shoes is worth looking at twice. Well that was a lie, considering Mr. Searsucker suit didn’t hang around all that long after John-William’s mother, Betty Ann, brought two more babies in the world who curled up and died.

  John-William’s mother walks from one shadow room to the next. The furniture is dim, like chairs and tables and beds all covered in a ghosty kind of light, the pale green glow like the fireflies John-William’s mother used to capture in a jar.

  It was the first brick house she’d ever lived in in her life. The first time she’d lived in town except once. Betty Ann and her mother had moved to Atoka from the farm when Mama Steck took sick and they had to live there till she died. When it happened, Betty Ann was right there, Betty Ann saw it, watched the night come until the room was inky black, watched while it hovered over Mama Steck a while, then plunged down into that dry and withered mouth and sucked her life away. Betty Ann peed her britches right then, and never, ever, told Mother what she saw.

  Jack’s wife, John-William’s mother, walks through the dark, walks from one room to the next. To the living room, the big bedroom where she sleeps alone now, through the bathroom and John-William’s room, even in the closets, out through the doorway that leads to the shed that sags against the house. Light from a half-moon slants through the holes that Jack never fixed. Truth to tell, Jack never fixed shit, never put a nail in a wall, never fixed a leak.

  Lord, what a mess, thinks John-William’s mother, Betty Ann. It’s like your whole life’s stacked up in there, gathering dust, soaking up time, hours used up and tossed away, moments dead and gone, rusted and frozen where they lay. Jack’s hammers and his nails and his saws and his files and his broken axe, waiting to finish some goddamn thing he never even started at all. John-William’s bike, broken and twisted, one wheel missing and one wheel bent. Wasn’t anyone going to fix it. Why in heaven’s name was she hanging onto that?

  Just too much to bother about, thinks John-William’s mother, and not enough time, not any time at all. . . .

  Betty Ann, John-William’s mother, perches on the edge of the tub and turns on the hot water tap. John-William’s clothes are wadded in a pile. He’d ridden out for crawdads with bacon on a string, down by the creek behind the park. He’d gotten all soaked, peeled everything off, left it on the floor. John-William’s mother gave him a proper scolding, the boy knew better than that. She’d scrubbed him good, tossed socks and underpants into the bin. Picked up his shirt and shook her head. His brand new Ferdinand the Bull shirt and already ruined for good.

  In John-William’s pockets she found a Krazy Kat button and a string from a top, a cap from a Nehi Orange and a broken lead soldier with his legs cut off above the knees. When Betty Ann was fifteen, she stayed with her cousin Helen for a while. One night they drove into Lawton for a picture show and ice cream. Helen took her daddy’s new Packard. They were supposed to be back before dark. They told Helen’s daddy they had a flat. What happened was they met two soldiers in town from Fort Sill. The soldiers were both nineteen. They had a pint of gin and a carton of Wings cigarettes. Helen made Betty Ann drive while she and the best-looking boy sat and giggled in the back. Betty Ann knew they were doing more than that.

  Betty Ann and the other soldier spread a blanket on the grass. Helen and her friend never left the back seat. Betty Ann couldn’t stand the taste of gin. She drank a little all the same and smoked a lot of cigarettes. She let the boy kiss her, and he kissed real fine. After a while she let him reach in and touch her breasts. Just on the tops and not any lower than that. She hadn’t meant to but the boy was real nice and he came from out of state. He said he’d like to see her naked. Betty Ann said absolutely not. They kissed a lot more. Betty Ann was flattered he was getting so hot. The cigarettes made her too dizzy to stop. She let him get on top and rub against her through his clothes. His hardness touched her once and that was that. The boy made a noise and walked off in the grass for some time. On the way home, when they’d let the soldiers off, Helen made Betty Ann tell her everything that happened in the grass. Then Helen told Betty Ann things she hadn’t even thought about before.

  John-William’s mother lets the water run in the tub. Back in the bedroom she peels the sticky dress up over her head, drops it on the floor. Just like John-William, she thinks. Doesn’t get all his bad habits from Jack. On the way back she stops, stands there in the hall. Something seems to move, something in the almost not quite corner in the dark. Something nearly there, something nearly out of sight. John-William’s mother turns around fast. Gives a little jump, a little start. And there’s Betty Ann looking back, just as surprised, just as naked as Betty Ann herself. Betty Ann knows she ought to look away, knows she shouldn’t stand there staring in her birthday suit. Still, the sight in the mirror holds her fixed, holds her still, like a doe caught frightened in the light.

  My lord, who’s that, thinks John-William’s mother. It sure isn’t me, isn’t anyone that I ever knew! It looks like her. But it can’t be John-William’s mother, can’t be Jack’s wife. Betty Ann feels sticky from the heat, from the sweat between her breasts, from the tingle in her nipples, from the heat between her knees. The woman in the mirror has beaded points of light in the dark between her thighs, has slick-silver flesh, has an opalescent glow like she’s just stepped out of a moonlit sea. The woman in the mirror doesn’t think about meatloaf at all, doesn’t think about carrots on the stove. She thinks about the soldier and the need in his eyes and the hard thing pressed against her belly that night.

  The woman in the mirror remembers every feeling, every moment with the soldier in the grass, later with a boy named Freddie and one named Alex, and Bob after that, and every single night, every morning with Jack, even the moments when he hit her too hard, when her face swelled up and she went out back to cry. . . .

  Goodness sake, thinks John-William’s mother, uneasy with the thoughts in her head, and the warm spots farther down than that. “Well that’s what you get,” she thinks out loud, “gawking at yourself like a Fort Worth floozie struttin’ down Third Avenue.”

  John-William’s mother remembers the water in the tub. Lord, she’d gone and left it on. There’d be water running out the door, into the hall and onto the carpet, and Jack’s wife, Betty Ann, running naked ’round the house with a mop and John-William’s supper in the stove.

  Betty Ann stops right there and frowns at the tub. She’s real sure she turned the water on, but there isn’t a drip or a drop, and the tub’s dry as a bone. Betty Ann shakes her head, says “Well, I declare,” pads in her bare feet back down the hall, back to the kitchen, back to the stove, back to the counter and the peels in the sink, back to the meatloaf in the stove. Walks to the screen to check the latch. Stops, looks out the back. Remembers where she is and has to laugh. No one walks around naked in the kitchen, bare ass naked, not a stitch at all, even in the dark. If Jack came in right then he’d think she was crazy as a loon. Which doesn’t much matter, she remembers, Jack’s not coming back at all.

  Betty Ann stands at the screen and looks out. Doesn’t seem that long ago she was watching the light slink away, waiting for the dark to slide in. She looks past the drive to the Hooper’s back yard. The walls are black, the roof has faded into night. She can see the Prewitts’ fence, but the Kamps are out of sight. John-William’s mother looks up as something flutters in the night. Just for an instant, it hangs there, a smudge against the inky sky. Maybe it has red eyes, she thinks. Maybe its tongue is colored orange.

  A wind hot as syrup fills the night. Betty Ann’s heart skips a beat. Skips two, hesitates, decides to try again. Betty Ann catches her breath, backs away from the door, leans against the sink. Lets her eyes touch the room. The garbage can, the broom, the chair, and the stove. She opens the pot, peers inside. The carrots are limp, dry as brittle leaves. The pale blue flame has gone out. She opens the oven door. The meatloaf is cold, pink, with little eyes of fat. The radio is dead, the refrigerator, too. The lights, the gas.
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  Turn on the faucet. A sputter and a cough. Betty Ann tries the phone. “Hello? Hello?” Just like in the movies. Nobody’s there.

  Betty Ann walks naked through the gray heavy gauze of her first brick house. She’d been real scared once before, when she and John-William were alone and Jack was in Tulsa overnight. Something had scratched on the window and made wet steps on the lawn. In the morning, there was nothing there to see. The next night Jack was snoring by her side, but Betty Ann didn’t sleep for a week.

  “It’s all right,” she says, “everything’s fine. Everything’s off right now, but it’ll all go on again.” Her voice sounds funny in the still and empty house. She feels her way back to the kitchen, finds her Old Golds, a box of matches on the sink. Paws through the junk drawer, finds a wad of string, pencil stubs, and dry fountain pens. No candles at all.

  John-William’s mother moves back down the hall. Looks in the mirror. Can’t hardly see herself at all. Lights a kitchen match. Betty Ann naked, skin white as tallow in the flare of sudden light. The living room carpet’s black as tar. The easy chairs are blurs against the greater dark. Feels for the sofa. Can’t find it anywhere at all. The match doesn’t work. She tries another and another after that. Tosses the box on the floor.

  Moving real slow, doesn’t want to bump her toes. Opens the front door a crack. Can’t see much better than she did in the back.

  The houses across the street are just like hers. Stubby brick, living room, bedrooms, kitchen in the back. Arch across the porch. Now all the houses are solemn and gray, all the color drained out, the life washed away. No lights in the windows, no lights at all.