Halfway Down the Stairs

by Gary A Braunbeck

  I asked you once already to not look at me like that. I know how it sounds, believe me. It’s been over thirty years ago that it happened and not a day goes by that I don’t go over it again, and every blessed time I do I keep coming back to the same conclusion. I told Don that putting that kind of fear inside a boy would come back on him somehow. I told him.

  Kyle’s doing fine. Went to live with his grandmother who made sure he got the right kind of care. He still wears glasses, but he ain’t lost his sight yet. He writes me every month and calls me every other weekend. He’s real excited about how well his new book’s doing—you know that boy’s had three Number Two bestsellers in the last few years? Seems folks can’t get enough of his spaceships and monsters. He sends me copies of every new book and story he publishes, and he always inscribes them the same way: To My Buddy Jackson, Who Knows What the Bog Man Knows: It’s Always Dinosaur Day.

  He signs him name Chaz Bone-eh.

  Kid’s got a lot on the ball, he does.

  In the House of the Hangman One Does Not Talk of Rope

  Alan Westall committed suicide twice before he ate breakfast. The first time came a few moments after he got out of bed; he took the belt from his pants, fastened it securely to the doorknob, twisted it into a tight figure 8, then stuck his neck through the loop and sat down. It took longer than he’d thought it would and was infinitely more painful than he’d imagined, but as he stood watching himself convulse and turn various disgusting colors, he realized that he’d started the day in the best possible manner. He felt much, much better about himself.

  After the thrashing and choking stopped, after the final death rattle wheezed from his crushed throat, after his bowels had emptied themselves of their foulness as a final illustration of death’s indignity, only then did he take the special container from his pocket, smiling to himself as he unscrewed the cap and heard the faint whoosh-pop!

  Empty and ready to be filled.

  He took one last look at his body and then ground the flesh and bone under his heels until all that remained was a fine powder, which he carefully scooped up and placed inside the container.

  He held it up to the light, studying its contents.

  This was, he thought, the Alan Westall who continuously smiled at people he’d rather tell to go fuck themselves. Within the granules was that Alan Westall; the country-club bartender who spent his nights listening to rich, pampered people moan on and on about how their money didn’t make them happy, only more privileged and therefore better than the people who served their drinks; better, even, than the families of those who served them with smiling faces. Here was the Alan Westall who felt like a whore every time he collected his paycheck—and a cheap one, at that. Because he served the rich and privileged and they were the ones who’d shut down the plant where his father had worked for over thirty years, and Dad started drinking then because he was fifty-eight years old and no one would hire him and there wasn’t enough money because he’d been sixteen months short for his pension and there was no way that Alan Westall could make it better and now both his parents were dead, rotting six feet under, killed by poverty and frustration, beaten to death by a world they never harmed. And so their surviving son was a whore.

  Or had been, rather.

  Now he was dust.

  The new Alan Westall smiled, slipped the container into his pocket, and went into the bathroom to shave. He had just applied the shaving cream and opened the straight-razor when the phone rang. The old Alan would have cursed, then stormed into the middle room to answer it, but the new and improved Alan Westall had a better attitude, and so smiled broadly. Nothing could phase him now. He answered the phone, not minding at all the shaving cream he smeared on the handset.

  “Hel-loooooo,” he said cheerfully.

  “Hi’ya.” It was Janet. “So...I guess you’re still alive after all, huh?”

  “So it would seem.”

  “Listen, I was just going through some stuff and found a couple of your books.” She read the titles. He couldn’t remember any of them.

  “You can keep them,” he said.

  “I figured you’d say something like that.”

  Something of the old Alan stirred within him. He didn’t like the taste it left in his mouth. “Let’s not argue anymore, okay?”

  “No, of course not. In order to argue we’d actually have to be talking to one another, wouldn’t we?”

  “I’m not sure I follow.”

  “Jesus, Alan! You haven’t so much as called me in almost three weeks! The last time you spent the weekend, you hardly said a word. Then you just disappeared. I think you owe me an explanation and an apology.”

  “Why were you going through things?”

  Janet gave a disgusted sigh. “Because I’m moving, that’s why. A senior copywriter position opened up at a branch office in New York and they offered me the position.”

  He felt nothing, though he knew he should have. “Well...I guess congratulations are in order.”

  “I didn’t call to...goddammit I did call for you to bestow accolades on me, I called because I...” She fell silent. Something of the old Alan stirring told him that she was desperately hurt and he should try to do something to make up for it.

  He waged a fierce battle in the silence, and lost.

  “You can keep the books to remember me by. The good times, anyway.”

  “Ask me not to go.”

  “W-what?”

  “Ask me not to go, Alan. Tell me you’re sorry about pulling another one of your disappearing acts, tell me that you’re back in therapy and want to get over your depression about your parents, tell me that you’ll try harder not to be in a fog most of the time. Please? Tell me that the ugliness is over and everything will be fine between us from now on—Christ! At least ask me to help you. You’ve never done that, you know? I don’t know if it’s that annoying Midwest blue-collar work ethic or just some bullshit macho streak in you, but you’ve never once asked me to help you through any of this. I will, I swear to you. Just say the word and I’ll turn down the position, tell them that I’ve changed my mind. They told me I could. They hate the idea of losing me here so it’s not like I’d be screwing myself out of a livelihood. All you have to do is give me a little something, Alan; all you have to do is ask.”

  He tried in the silence and couldn’t do it.

  “I hope you like it in the Big Apple.”

  A wet, spluttering sound from her end. “Oh, God. Why can’t you let it go? None of it was your fault, but you have to put yourself on the rack over it, don’t you? You had no idea your father was capable of something like that. How...how could you?”

  “If I’d been paying more attention, if I’d cared a little more, I would have seen it coming.”

  “Don’t say that! It isn’t true and you know it as well as I do! You spend so much time brooding over what you should have seen, or did, or noticed, or realized, or whatever in the hell it is you chastise yourself for constantly, that you don’t see the things you can do something about. Why is it that people are precious to you only after they’re a memory?”

  He felt the shaving cream run down his neck, saw it drip onto the floor, soaking into the carpet. “Be happy, Janet. And find someone who’ll love you well.” He didn’t wait for a reply; he hung up, disconnected the phone, walked into the bathroom, picked up the straight-razor, and stared at the reflection staring back at him from the mirror—some man who had once been a boy, and was not what the boy had once dreamed of becoming.

  He sneered at the face.

  You should call her right back, you know that, don’t you? Call her back and beg her to forgive you and stay. But you won’t. Why is that, you suppose?

  Part of the old Alan was still in that face that stared back at him. Deceptive bastard that he was. And that was the part that had hung up on Janet. That was the part that had just driven away the best thing that ever happened to him. Kind, caring, intelligent and articulate, perceptive, everything the bo
y had once dreamed of finding in a life-mate, silenced forever by the simple act of yanking a cord from a wall.

  Now there was no one for him.

  The face reflected at him didn’t deserve anyone.

  And so Alan Westall took his life a second time by inserting the tip of the razor into the base of his arm and pulling it up to the wrist, opening his flesh like the pink maw of some loathsome insect, watching as the blood slopped out into the sink. Ignoring the pain, he did the same to his other arm, then stood back and watched as he collapsed against the bathtub, arms extended, staining the white porcelain.

  He felt no sympathy for the pathetic creature huddled before him. It deserved to die a coward’s death, alone and cold and filled with misery. No sympathy at all.

  When it was finally done, when the thing before him was elbow-deep in its own gore, Alan removed the container, unscrewed the cap—pop-whoosh!—and ground the body into dust, then scooped it into the container, mixing it with the powder from earlier. Then he was on his knees, can of cleanser in hand, washing out the tub until it was restored to its original state of shiny white. Then he cleaned the sink. Then he shaved. When his face was smooth and clean he saw that he didn’t quite recognize the man who stared back at him, but felt as if he could learn to like this man a great deal.

  And so to the kitchen to prepare breakfast for this new friend, this better friend, this one-and-only best friend who was now the only one he had.

  While the English muffin was toasting, he sat down at the table with his cup of black coffee and picked up the yellowing newspaper page, the same page he’d read every morning for the last six months, and looked at the small headline over the article three-quarters of the way down:

  MAN KILLS WIFE, SELF

  As always, his eyes began to tear.

  He took the container out of his pocket, unscrewed the lid—pop-whoosh!—and poured the powder into his coffee, turning it a deep, rich butterscotch color.

  Not minding the searing pain in his throat, he drank it down.

  Felt something old and familiar fill him to the brim.

  And wondered how many times he’d die before supper.

  Iphigenia

  It’s dying without death and accomplishing nothing To waver thus In the dark belly of cramped misfortune.

  —Agrippad’Aubigne

  He was checking the seat numbers on the tickets when he heard Mrs. Williamson scream.

  "Donny! Watch out!"

  He looked down in time to see seven-month-old Julie crawl into his path, her body so low to the ground it would be easy to step on her fragile skull and crush it all over the sidewalk. He pulled back in mid-stride and fell back-first onto the pavement, cursing both the pain and the memory of his sister—which found him as soon as the cement knocked the air from his lungs. After a moment he managed to push himself up on his elbows to see little Julie—sitting up now—look at him and giggle, a thin trickle of saliva dribbling off her chin. She looked so cute, so safe.

  Safe. With someone to watch over her. Protect her. Trusting was easy when you were that young. Trusting was fun.

  So little Julie was giggling.

  As Mrs. Williamson ran up to her daughter Donald wondered if, at the very instant of her death, Jennifer Ann had giggled, too, thinking the whole thing somewhat funny, when you Got Right Down To It.

  Then he remembered the sound of screams echoing off the stone walls.

  And he began to shake.

  "You should pay more attention to where you're walking, Donald Banks. You could've—" Her words cut off when she caught sight of Donald's pale and terrified face.

  "Donny?" She reached out to touch his arm but he scooted away from her, crossing his arms in front of his face, his shaking worse than before.

  "Oh, God...I'm...I'm sorry, Mrs. Williamson, really I am. I should've been...been looking. I'm really s-s-s-s-sorry. Is she all right?" He winced at the sound of his stuttering; it was the first time he'd lapsed back into it since—

  —since—

  —since little Julie was giggling then things must be all right, because Mrs. Williamson had the baby in her arms now and was stroking the back of her head.

  "Julie's fine. Christ, calm down, will you? No big deal, no harm done. I don't see why you're so—" Once again she cut herself off.

  Donald looked up and saw it register on her face; the memory of the police car, of sitting up with his mother while he and his father went to the morgue, of the funeral, the closed casket, all of it.

  For a moment she went pale, also.

  "Oh, Donny, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to yell like that, I just panicked.”

  He rose unsteadily to his feet and gathered up the four concert tickets, very much aware of the neighbors who were staring at them from front porches or from behind windows. Donald could feel their eyes drilling into his back, watching him, perhaps holding their breath, waiting.

  Expectantly.

  "It's okay, Mrs. W-W-W-Williamson. I'm just glad she's okay."

  The woman smiled at him, then took her daughter and began walking back toward her home. Donald pulled in a few deep breaths, hoping that the stuttering would stop once he calmed down. He continued in the direction of his house, all the while feeling his neck crawl with the stares of his neighbors.

  Maybe they knew. Maybe they sensed it, somehow.

  For just a moment there, even with the memory of Jennifer Ann pulsing through him, for just a fraction of a moment before he jerked back and fell, a part of him—a silent, ignoble part—had wanted to bear down on little Julie's skull with all his weight and grind her head into the pavement, just to know what it felt like, just to know how it must've felt to all those people, they had to have something when it happened, didn't they, had to know that they were stomping out the life of another human being, and he'd wondered ever since that night what it must feel like to sense a person's head being mashed under your foot, and for just a fraction of a moment there he could've found—

  —his chest started pounding and he slowed his pace. His arms were shaking with such force he could feel it in his teeth.

  His temples were pounding.

  He thought he might vomit. He looked back to make sure little Julie and her mother were safely inside their home, where no expectant eyes could harm them. He took a few more deep breaths, managed to steady himself, then walked on home, all the time telling himself that he'd just been angered and frightened for that fraction of a moment, that he'd never consciously hurt anyone.

  Never.

  He hoped his father was asleep by now. Nothing would be dredged up then; about Jennifer Ann's death, about that night at the arena, about his mother's suicide six months after Jennifer's funeral, pleaseGod nothing. Donald couldn't stand it when his father went off on one of his “You-Know-You’re-All-I've-Got-Left" tangents, tangents that never ended well for either of them. He shook his head. Two years. Two years and still his father spent his weekends in front of the television set, drinking himself into a coma, hearing without listening, watching without seeing, talking to people who were no longer there; then, on Sunday night, he'd rouse himself enough to shower, dress for work, pack his bucket, and leave at three a.m. to fill himself with factory foulness for the next eleven-and-a-half hours, come home, eat a little something, drink a lot of something, then collapse for five or six hours, just long enough to give his broken existence a breather before he got up and did it all over again. The thought made Donald wince. Donald Banks loved his father, even with all the man's faults, but there was nothing he could do for the pain the man was in, and it was killing both of them.

  A suddenly empty house, a suddenly empty life, a suddenly empty batch of dreams; dreams nurtured for a family of four, revised for a family of three, abandoned for a family of two. The house was just a coffin waiting for the dirt.

  Donald reached up and rubbed his eyes, still aware of a few neighbors staring at him.

  All because Jennifer Ann had wanted to come along to the concert; b
ecause she was only eight and still thought that everything Big Brother did was so goddamned terrific, because My Big Brother Donny's The Bestest—

  He paused by the front door, staring at the tickets in his hand.

  A small insect was crawling across the porch. It paused by his foot, its feelers searching for him. Checking him out.

  "How's it g-g-g-goin—"

  Goddammit!

  He slammed his foot down on the thing.

  And twisted.

  He turned away to see some of the neighbors backing away from their windows, no longer staring. He felt their eyes drop away, satisfied.

  Stepping through the front door, Donald saw his father heading upstairs, a quart bottle of beer in his hand. He was dressed only in his underwear and his body, once looming and powerful, had given way to a sickening coat of flab over the last few years. His hair was tangled, making the heavy streaks of grey so much more predominate, and his eyes were so bloodshot Donald could barely see the pupils.

  "Hi'ya," whispered his father. "I was just...goin' up to bed. Shift was a bitch."

  "You look pretty b-bushed," said Donald. He caught a moment of hesitation on his father's face, a moment where the man must have asked himself if he'd heard his son right; did the boy stutter again? No, that couldn't be, he hadn't done that for ages, and he only stuttered during the Crazy Time when all the doctors thought he might try to kill himself, and when the stuttering went away so did the Craziness, because his boy was fine now, and fine boys didn't go away forever because they knew they were all you had left in the whole...