The Listener

by Robert McCammon

  Come back with somethin’, Ginger had said.

  And he thought: Got it.

  Thirteen.

  :My name’s Dwayne. What’s yours?:

  :Curtis.:

  :Are you my angel or my devil?:

  :I’m a boy. Just that.:

  :A boy? You a white boy or a nigger?:

  :I’m a Negro.:

  :That beats all. Talkin’ to my nigger angel. How old you be?:

  :Eleven.:

  :I’m six-hundred-and-sixty-six. They don’t give me my letters in here. I get letters but they burn ’em. I seen ’em doin’ it. Smelled the smoke, so I know it was real. Hey, I need to get out of here. You listenin’?:

  :Yes. Where are you?:

  :I’m in Hell right now. They burn my letters out in the cornfield.:

  :I’m in New Orleans. Are you in Louisiana?:

  :You’re gettin’ mighty feeble, I can’t hardly hear you no more.:

  :I asked if you are in Louisiana.:

  :I’m right here, in this place they brought me to. Stafford chews tobacco but I don’t chew no tobacco, it makes me fuckin’ sick. Listen…Curtis…can you come get me out? I need to go home and they won’t let me go home.:

  :Where are you?:

  :I’m here, right here. I ain’t takin’ no more of them damn pills, neither. Myra thought she was sooooo fuckin’ cute! Wasn’t nothin’ a knife couldn’t fix. I got to get out of here and go home, somebody’s gonna steal my dog.:

  Nine years away from that mental conversation, Curtis lay on the bed in his room with the bedtable lamp shining and his copy of Le Morte D’Arthur lying at his side where he’d just put it when the memory of long-ago Dwayne came upon him. He listened to rain tapping at his window. In the distance thunder boomed hollowly across the river. It had been raining off and on since Sunday afternoon, and now here it was Tuesday night near ten-thirty and the boomers were still rolling in from the west. At least the heat had broken, but the steam wasn’t much better.

  Dwayne had answered his hello sent out at Lady’s request that night in Congo Square.

  It had dawned on the eleven-year-old Curtis, as their disjointed talks continued, that Dwayne was in a mental hospital somewhere in Louisiana but exactly how many miles away was unknown.

  Curtis pieced together that the hospital was more of a prison for the mentally disturbed, and Dwayne must’ve been kept with the criminally insane because he talked regularly about Myra and the knife, and how the knife had been put in his hand by the dark thing that came out of the wall one night after supper.

  It was strange, Curtis mused, that he had learned to hone and amplify his mental ear and voice by listening to a killer in an insane asylum. Their communication had gone on for nearly a year, until Curtis got the impression that not only was Dwayne refusing his pills but he’d started to turn violent toward the other inmates. It seemed that Dwayne thought the “dark thing” had come into the hospital and was moving from person to person with plans to kill him. Not long after that, Dwayne had gone silent. Whether someone had actually killed Dwayne or the doctors had done something to him that destroyed his telepathy, Curtis never knew; he never knew, either, what the name of the hospital was or exactly where it was.

  But they were out there. Other listeners, like himself. How many of them had been driven insane by the ability, and not knowing what it was, was hard to say.

  He heard his mama coughing in her bedroom. She would be asking him to fetch her a glass of water soon. It always happened. How sick she actually was, no one knew but herself. She declined all suggestions to go see a doctor. If it wasn’t her back hurting, it was her stomach, or her legs, or her head aching so bad she couldn’t see straight. She didn’t have a head of iron like Joe Mayhew had, Curtis thought as he listened to the soft music of the rain. It was true, as he understood it, that a barrel of tar had fallen off a platform at the Harmony Street dock and hit Joe Mayhew in the head before it struck his shoulder, broke it in three places, and then crashed down upon his ribs to break two of those. The story—and he’d gotten this from people like Prince Purdy after Lady had ignited his curiosity about his daddy, because Orchid wouldn’t tell a word of it—was that the doctor at the hospital had said Joe would carry a bruise on his forehead for awhile but his skull was undamaged, and right there the doc had made the remark Must have a head like iron. Curtis remembered his father as a large bearlike figure moving around the house, sweeping him up in a pair of mighty arms, swinging him around until he saw stars and then setting him down again, gentle as a kiss.

  He recalled one Sunday summer afternoon, two months before the accident, when his daddy and mama—happy, then—took him to hear the bands play in Congo Square. They were strolling through the active market area—people selling straw hats, walking-sticks, cane chairs and the like—when Curtis looked up to see a flock of birds lifting from one of the old oaks and taking flight. His daddy suddenly put his huge hand on Curtis’s shoulder and asked in his bass-voiced rumble, “What color you think your bird is?”

  “Sir?”

  “Your bird. That little thing flyin’ ’round in you that people call a soul. What color you think it to be?”

  “Joe!” Orchid—so much younger then, so much more vital—had turned a scowl upon her husband. “Stop that nonsense!”

  “Wasn’t no nonsense to my daddy and his daddy and every daddy that came before,” Joe had said. “No, ma’am! Ever’body’s soul is a bird, wantin’ to fly free. Whole of life is about gettin’ the wings loose from all earthly weights and ever’thing that binds you to this.” He stomped one big boot upon the dirt, and dust puffed up.

  “That’s whoodoo talkin’.”

  “Ain’t. I knew a Christian preacher said the very same thing when I was younger’n Curtis. Said our souls start out as young birds in the nest without markin’s or color, and it is on us to do the markin’ and colorin’ so when we go on—”

  “This is not proper talk in front of our boy.”

  “What say? About goin’ on? Hell’s bells, woman, if he ain’t got that fact of life in his head by now after all the churchin’, somebody has done a failure.”

  “Brown like me,” said Curtis, who’d been thinking about it since he’d been asked, since to him it made perfect sense.

  “Don’t have to be your skin color,” Joe answered. “Know what color I think my bird to be? Bright red with orange wings. I’ve painted it up real good in my years. Well…maybe it’s got some dark spots there on its belly, but otherwise…yep, bright red with orange wings.”

  “Ree-dick-u-liss,” said Orchid.

  “Now ’bout your mama’s bird,” Joe said, and gave his son a quick wink. “Got to be gloomy gray with wings the darkest blue short of midnight, ’cept she’s got a big ol’ yella beak that opens and closes—snap!—like a beartrap.”

  “You are talkin’ crazy! I’m not that!” Orchid gave that big right shoulder a punch but she was half-smiling when she did it.

  “Curtis!” Joe’s voice came down as a rumbly whisper that sounded like a passing freight train. “Let’s you and me work on gettin’ some bright red or orange or some color on your mama’s bird that just ’bout shocks the eyeballs out. Deal?”

  “Yes sir,” Curtis had said, and when he reached up his daddy’s hand was there.

  The rain on Curtis’s window tapped and tapped. Thunder growled, still distantly. Curtis wondered how the Knights of the Round Table got around in their shining suits of armor when it was raining; wouldn’t the sound of your own tin roof drive you to distraction?

  It took a long time for his daddy’s body to heal, after the accident, but Joe Mayhew became a silent man to whom laughter was a stranger. Curtis thought that maybe his skull hadn’t been fractured but the wings of his bird had been broken. He did go back to work, after a time, but things were never the same. Curtis later heard that Ironhead Joe could no longer do half the work he used to do, and the bossman took him off the docks and put him in the warehouse where he stacked
up the lighter boxes and sacks. Joe Mayhew became a man apart from his wife and son, and apart too from the man he used to be. Curtis in later years figured that his daddy was ashamed of being diminished, made smaller than what he once was by fate and a falling barrel of tar.

  Ironhead Joe took to going on long walks. One night he did not come home.

  Curtis heard his mama coughing. Soon she’d be calling for him, to get that glass of water.

  :Curtis, are you awake?:

  It took him a few seconds to move his thoughts away from himself, and into the realm where he could answer. His private radio, he thought…taking in the signal, and sending out his own.

  :I am,: he said.

  :What’re you doing?:

  :I was just lyin’ here readin’ and listenin’ to the rain.:

  :It’s raining where I am, too,: she said. :What’re you reading?:

  :A book about King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. Do you know about that?:

  :I’ve heard about it. That was a long time ago, wasn’t it?:

  :Yes,: he said, :it surely was.:

  She was quiet for awhile, and then she asked, :Is Mr. Crable doing better now?:

  On Friday night, Curtis had told her about Mr. Crable’s daughter being killed, simply because Ol’ Crab’s despair had latched into his mind and he had to put it somewhere. :Some better,: he answered. :He’s back to workin’, but he’s gonna be goin’ up to Chicago day after tomorrow. They’re givin’ him a round-trip ticket.:

  :That’s good to hear.:

  :Yes. Funny thing…Mr. Crable’s been workin’ around trains for nearly all his life but this’ll just be the third time he’s ever ridden on one.:

  :Have you? Ever ridden on a train, I mean?:

  :No,: Curtis said, :I never have.:

  :We have, a few times. My family and me. We went up to New York City last year.:

  :Oh. Likely I was carryin’ your bags, then.:

  Again, there was a silence but Curtis could still feel the power of her presence, like a faint electrical buzz in his head. She said, :Would you know me if you saw me?:

  :Would you know me?:

  :I don’t know. Probably not.:

  :Same here. So you passed right on through Union Station with your family and I never knew it.:

  :This is so crazy,: she said. :Talking like this, and knowing somebody but not knowing them.:

  :It’s a mystery, that’s for sure,: he agreed. :But it’s our mystery, isn’t it?:

  :Yes it is.:

  Curtis heard the thunder again, a little closer this time. Was she gone? No, the presence was still there.

  :I have another mystery,: she said. :It’s about my daddy.:

  :What about him?:

  :He’s…: She didn’t go on for a time, as if she were deciding whether to confide this or not but Curtis knew she would because on this rainy night she needed a listener. :He’s worried about something,: she said. :It’s something bad. I’ve seen him worried before…he’s worried a lot, about business things…but this is different. I told Mama and she said she sees it too but she says it’s because of…well…more business things. But I think this is different, Curtis. And then…there’s another thing.:

  :What is it?:

  :We had a business friend of Daddy’s over for supper last Thursday. Mr. Parr, his name is. Well…when Mr. Hartley picked us up at school today…we were drivin’ past the park, and…we passed a car at the curb…and I looked over and saw it was Mr. Parr behind the wheel. Then Mr. Parr followed us all the way home. I told Mr. Hartley about it and he said I was wrong. Mistaken, is what he said exactly. Then I told my daddy about it and he said I was wrong. But I know what I saw, and I know Mr. Parr followed us all the way home from school today.:

  :That is kinda strange,: Curtis said. :Why would that be?:

  :I don’t know…but…when I told Daddy about it, he said I was seeing things and then he got a little upset and he said that he was surprised that I hadn’t seen Curtis following us home. He said I wasn’t to be talking like this before Mama because she’s already nervous about…you know…this thing.:

  :Did your little brother see Mr. Parr too?:

  :No, and I didn’t say anything about it to him.:

  “Curtis?” It was his mama’s voice, weak but in its own way demanding.

  :I’m sorry your daddy’s so worried,: Curtis said. :Everything passes, though. He’ll get through it.:

  :I just want to know why Mr. Parr followed us home. I think Mr. Hartley and Daddy both know and they won’t tell me.:

  “Curtis! I need some water!”

  :I have to go. My mama’s callin’. Do you think you can get on to sleep?:

  :I’ll try…but it’s in my head that something is really wrong.:

  “Curtis!” came the call, with a hint of anger in it.

  :Mama’s gettin’ mad,: Curtis said. :Gettin’ her feathers all ruffled up. Really, I have to go. Don’t worry yourself so much you can’t sleep, you got school tomorrow. Goodnight, now.:

  :If I can’t sleep, can we talk later?:

  :Surely,: he answered. :Goodnight.:

  “Curtis, have you gone deef?”

  :Goodnight,: she said, and added :thank you,: and then she was gone.

  “Comin’!” Curtis called toward the wall that separated himself from his mother, and he got out of bed and went into the hallway. From behind her closed door Orchid said, “Bring me the nice glass tonight,” and she coughed a few times to speed his pace.

  “Yes’m,” Curtis answered. He went into the small kitchen, switched on the overhead light and reached up to the high shelf where the nice glass rested on a square of dark blue velvet. It was heavy in his hand and had many diamond-like facets around the base. The pipes gave a short but high-pitched shriek when he drew water from the faucet. He took the glass of water in to his mama, who was sitting up in bed propped in her nest of pillows, the bedside lamp with its flower-print shade casting a dusty light edged with shadows.

  “Took you long enough,” Orchid said, with a sniffle. “Couldn’t you hear me?”

  He handed her the nice glass, and then he decided to say, “I was speakin’ to someone.”

  “I didn’t hear you on the telephone.”

  “Wasn’t on the telephone.”

  Her hand stopped with the nice glass near her mouth. Then she drank some water and let her scarfed head fall back as if she had been struck yet another blow from the deadly foe of life.

  “Mercy,” she said. “Mercy, mercy on me.”

  “You didn’t think it had gone away, did you?”

  “I didn’t want to know. Don’t want to know now.”

  Curtis thought of telling her She’s a girl ten years old, has a businessman father and a driver named Hartley who takes herself and her brother to school so she must be rich and live somewhere in a fine house but he did not, because that would be mean and his mama did not want to know. “Need anything else?” he asked.

  “Stay with me awhile,” she said. “Won’t you?”

  Curtis nodded. He sat down across from her bed in the tired chair that sagged under his slight weight and was colored the mottled hue of many grays.

  “Still rainin’,” she said.

  “Yes’m.”

  “I get kinda sad when it rains. Seems like a lonely sound, to me.”

  Curtis remained silent, knowing there was more to come. He wanted to listen to her, to allow her to spill out everything she was holding within, and that was something his mama had never understood.

  She took another drink of water and rolled the nice glass between her fragile hands. “Your daddy,” she said quietly, “proposed marriage to me in the rain. Did you know that?” She waited for him to shake his head, no. “He did. We came out of a dance, and we were walkin’ along the street. It started to rain, and I cuddled up next to him because he was just like…like a big mountain I could feel protected by. Oh, and he was a good dancer too, to be his size. But I remember…in the rain…I cuddled
up close and he looked down into my face and kissed me. And right then…right then…before he asked me, I knew I was his. I knew I couldn’t belong to no other. Then he said them words: ‘Orchid, would you take me to be your husband?’ Them words…a woman don’t ever forget ’em. You’ll get your chance to say ’em to some girl someday, by-and-by. Then…I think we can be happy again.”

  “Yes’m,” Curtis said.

  “It is a hard thing,” said Orchid, “to watch somebody drift away from you. It is…a little death, I think. You try to figure out…what can you do, to make things right? You laugh when you feel like cryin’, and when you look across the room at the man you love…you just see a ghost standin’ there. Oh…hear that thunder? Just hollered right over our house, seemed like.”

  Curtis said, “I wish I could do somethin’ to make you feel better, mama. If you’d let me take you to see—”

  “No doctors,” she interrupted. “Uh uh. Cost too much money. Spent all that money takin’ you to see the doctors, and what good did that do?”

  I can’t help what I am, he wanted to say…but what would the noble Knights of the Round Table say to that, if they were in his shoes? They would not want to lay further hurt upon a defenseless creature like the woman who lay in the bed before him, and so he replied, “I can afford a doctor for you, mama.”

  “Barely,” she said. “Lord God, we’re just scrapin’ by as it is, you’re wantin’ to throw money away on a useless doctor?”

  Curtis had no answer for that, because she would hear no answer.

  “I am so tired,” she said.

  “I’ll let you get on to sleep, then.”

  “Not yet. Not just yet.” Orchid drank the rest of the water from the nice glass. “Tell me this,” she said after a pause. “How do you do…you know…that listenin’ thing? I mean…how do you talk with your mind?”

  Curtis had been about to get up, but now he eased back into the creaky chair because never ever had his mama asked him a question like this before. He thought about it a few seconds and formulated an answer. “At work…one of the other ’caps…we call him Brightboy…he can roll his tongue up like a rug somebody’s skidded on. Three or four folds in that thing. None of the others can do it. I can’t even think how to do it, but it’s natural to him. When I was in the fifth grade…there was a boy named Noah Walcott. On the playground one day I saw him catch a wasp in his hand. Bunch of other kids saw it too, he was puttin’ on a show. He clasped that wasp in his fist and he shook it like he was shakin’ dice…and then he put the wasp in his mouth. But it never stung him. Opened his mouth, and out it flew. I remember…he said wasps and hornets and everythin’ that stung was scared of him, and he’d never been stung and never would be.