The Howling Man

by Beaumont, Charles

  Robert's eyes opened and, he wanted to scream.

  Then he apologized, remembering to mention nothing of Drake. He put on his dress quickly and went downstairs after Miss Gentilbelle.

  He scarcely knew what he was eating; the food was tasteless in his mouth. But he remembered things and answered questions as he always had before.

  During dessert Miss Gentilbelle folded her book and laid it aside.

  "Mr. Franklin has gone away. Did you know that?"

  "No, Mother, I did not. Where has he gone?"

  "Not very far--he will be back. He's sure to come back; he always does. Roberta, did Mr. Franklin say anything to you before he left?"

  "No, Mother, he did not. I didn't know Mr. Franklin had gone away."

  Robert looked at Miss Gentilbelle's hands, watched the way the thin fingers curled about themselves, how they arched delicately in the air.

  He looked at the yellow band and again at the fingers. Such white fingers, such dry, white fingers . . .

  "Mother."

  "Yes?"

  "May I go into the yard for a little while?"

  "Yes. You have been naughty and kept me waiting dinner but I shall not punish you. See you remember the kindness and be in the living room in one half hour. You have your criticism to write."

  "Yes, Mother." Robert walked down the steps and into the yard. A soft breeze went through his hair and lifted the golden curls and billowed out his dress. The sun shone hotly but he did not notice. He walked to the first clump of trees and sat carefully on the grass. He waited.

  And then, after a time, a plump frog hopped into the clearing and Robert quickly cupped his hands over it. The frog leapt about violently, bumping its body against Robert's palms, and then it was still.

  Robert loosened the thin cloth belt around his waist and put the frog under his dress, so that it did not protrude noticeably.

  Then he stroked its back from outside the dress. The frog did not squirm or resist.

  Robert thought a while.

  "I shall call you Drake," he said.

  When Robert re-entered the kitchen he saw that Miss Gentilbelle was still reading. He excused himself and went up to his bedroom, softly, so that he would not be heard, and hid the frog in his dresser.

  He began to feel odd then. Saliva was forming inside his mouth, boiling hot.

  The corners of his room looked alive.

  He went downstairs.

  ". . . and Jeanne d'Arc was burned at the stake, her body consumed by flames. And there was only the sound of the flames, and crackling straw and wood: she did not cry out once." Miss Gentilbelle sighed. "There was punishment for you, Roberta. Do you profit from her story?"

  Robert said yes, he had profited.

  "So it is with life. The Maid of Orleans was innocent of any crime; she was filled with the greatest virtue and goodness, yet they murdered her. Her own people turned upon her and burnt the flesh away from her bones! Roberta--this is my question. What would you have done if you'd been Jeanne d'Arc and could have lived beyond the stake?"

  "I--don't know."

  "That," said Miss Gentilbelle, "is your misfortune. I must speak with you now. I've purposely put off this discussion so that you might think. But you've thought and remain bathed in your own iniquity. Child, did you honestly suspect that you could go babbling about the house with that drunken fool without my knowledge?"

  Robert's heart froze; the hurting needles came.

  "I listened to you, and heard a great deal of what was said. First, let us have an answer to a question. Do you think that you are a boy?"

  Robert did not answer.

  "You do." Miss Gentilbelle moved close. "Well, as it happens, you are not. Not in any sense of the word. For men are animals--do you understand? Tell me, are you an animal or a human being, Roberta?"

  "A human being."

  "Exactly! Then obviosly you cannot be a boy, isn't that so? You are a girl, a young lady: never, never forget that. Do you hear?"

  "Yes, Mother."

  "That, however, is not the purpose of this discussion." Miss Gentilbelle calmed swiftly. "I am disturbed that your mind plays tricks on you. No. What does disturb me is that you should lie and cheat so blatantly to your mother. You see, I heard you talking."

  Robert's head throbbed uncontrollably. His temples seemed about to burst with pain.

  "So--he had gone to get the authorities to take you away from me! Because your mother is so cruel to you, so viciously cruel to the innocent young child! And you will both ride off on a white horse to wonderful lands where no one is mean . . ."

  Her cheeks trembled. Her eyes seemed glazed. "Roberta, can you be so naive? Mr. Franklin is accustomed to such promises: I know." She put a hand to her brow, moved thin fingers across the flesh. "At this moment," she said, distantly, "he is in a bar, drinking himself into a stupor. Or perhaps one of the Negro brothels--I understand he's a well-known figure there."

  Miss Gentilbelle did not smile. Robert was confused: this was unlike her. He could catch just a little something in her eyes.

  "And so you listened to him and loved him and you wait for him. I understand, Roberta; I understand very well indeed. You love the gardener and you will go away with him!" Something happened; her tone changed, abruptly. It was no longer soft and distant. "You must be punished. It ought to be enough when you finally realize that your Drake will never come back to carry you off. But--it is not enough. There must be more."

  Robert heard very little now.

  "Stop gazing off as if you didn't hear me. Now--bring your little friend here."

  Robert felt the seed growing within him. He could feel it hard and growing inside his heart. And he couldn't think now.

  Miss Gentilbelle took Robert's wrist in her hand and clutched it until her nails bit deep into the flesh. "I saw you put that animal in your dress and take it upstairs. Fetch it to me this instant."

  Robert looked into his mother's eyes. Miss Gentilbelle stood above him, her hands clasped now to the frayed white collars of her dress. She was trembling and her words did not quite knit together.

  "Get it, bring it to me. Do you hear?"

  Robert nodded dumbly, and went upstairs to his room. It was alive. Birds filled it, and puppies. Little puppies, crying, whimpering with pain.

  He walked straight to the dresser and withdrew the frog, holding it securely in his hand.

  Green and white wings brushed his face as he went back toward the door.

  He walked downstairs and into the living room. Miss Gentilbelle was standing in the doorway; her eyes danced over the wriggling animal.

  Robert said nothing as they walked into the kitchen.

  "I am sure, Roberta, that when you see this--and when you see that no one ever comes to take you away--that the best thing is merely to be a good girl. It is enough. To be a good girl and do as Mother says."

  She took the frog and held it tightly. She did not seem to notice that Robert's mouth was moist, that his eyes stared directly through her.

  She did not seem to hear the birds and the puppies whispering to Robert, or see them clustering about him.

  She held the frog in one hand, and with the other pulled a large knife from the knife-holder. It was rusted and without luster, but its edge was keen enough, and its point sharp.

  "You must think about this, child. About how you forced your mother into punishing you." She smiled. "Tell me this: have you named your little friend?"

  "Yes. His name is Drake."

  "Drake! How very appropriate!"

  Miss Gentilbelle did not look at her son. She put the frog on the table and turned it over on its back. The creature thrashed violently.

  Then she put the point of the knife on the frog's belly, paused, waited, and pushed inwards. The frog twitched as she held it and drew the blade slowly across, slowly, deep inside the animal.

  In a while, when it had quieted, she dropped the frog into a box of kindling.

  She did not see Robert pick up
the knife and hold it in his hand.

  Robert had stopped thinking. Snowy flecks of saliva dotted his face, and his eyes had no life to them. He listened to his friends. The puppies, crawling about his feet, yipping painfully. The birds, dropping their bloody wings, flying crazily about his head, screaming, calling. And now the frogs, hopping, croaking.

  He did not think. He listened.

  "Yes . . . . . . yes."

  Miss Gentilbelle turned quickly, and her laughter died as she did so. She threw her hands out and cried--but the knife was already sliding through her pale dress, and through her pale flesh.

  The birds screeched and the puppies howled and the frogs croaked. Yes, yes, yes, yes!

  And the knife came out and went in again, it came out and went in again.

  Then Robert slipped on the wet floor and fell. He rolled over and over, crying softly, and laughing, and making other sounds.

  Miss Gentilbelle said nothing. Her thin white fingers were curled about the handle of the butcher knife, but she no longer tried to pull it from her stomach.

  Presently her wracked breathing stopped.

  Robert rolled into a corner, and drew his legs and arms about him, tight.

  He held the dead frog to his face and whispered to it . . .

  The large red-faced man walked heavily through the cypressed land. He skillfully avoided bushes and pits and came, finally, to the clearing that was the entrance to the great house.

  He walked to the wrought-iron gate that joined to the high brick wall that was topped with broken glass and curved spikes.

  He opened the gate, crossed the yard, and went up the decaying, splintered steps. He applied a key to the old oak door.

  "Minnie!" he called. "Got a little news for you! Hey, Minnie!"

  The silent stairs answered him.

  He went into the living room, upstairs to Robert's room.

  "Minnie!"

  He walked back to the hallway. An uncertain grin covered his face. "They're not going to let you keep him! How's that? How do you like it?"

  The warm bayou wind sighed through the shutters.

  The man made fists with his fingers, paused, walked down the hall, and opened the kitchen door.

  The sickly odor went to his nostrils first. The words "Jesus God' formed on his lips, but he made no sound.

  He stood very still, for a long time.

  The blood on Miss Gentilbelle's face had dried, but on her hands and where it had gathered on the floor, it was still moist.

  Her fingers were stiff around the knife.

  The man's eyes traveled to the far corner. Robert was huddled there, chanting softly--flat, dead, singsong words.

  ". . . wicked . . . must be punished . . . wicked girl . . ."

  Robert threw his head back and smiled up at the ceiling.

  The man walked to the corner and lifted Robert to his chest and held him tightly, crushingly.

  "Bobbie," he said. "Bobbie. Bobbie. Bobbie."

  The warm night wind turned cold.

  It sang through the halls and through the rooms of the great house in the forest.

  And then it left, frightened and alone.

  * * *

  Introduction to THE VANISHING AMERICAN

  (by John Tomerlin)

  * * *

  On his way home, after working late at the office, Mr. Minchell discovers that he is, in fact, vanishing. To his employer, store clerks, bartenders--even his own family--he either has become literally invisible, or so insignificant that his presence no longer can be detected. Only through an act of daring, an assertion of his individuality, does Mr. Minchell reappear; gain attention; prove his existence.

  The pun is a recurrent theme in Charles Beaumont's titles--"Fair Lady" being another, obvious, example; "Point of Honor" and Black Country" two less apparent ones--and is some indication of the sort of writer he was. A storyteller, a spinner of yarns, balladeer, prophet; a discoverer of the wonderous amidst the commonplace. His ideas sprang from the germinal "What if...?"

  What if homosexuality were the norm instead of inversion; what if a woman sought rape instead of avoiding it; and what if, in lieu of the assimilation of aboriginals, an American actually did vanish?

  The sometimes-obvious answers were couched in terms of characters and events so unexpected (occasionally unpleasant, frequently macabre, yet invariably real) that they laid bare new truths and new dimensions of understanding.

  This is because the pure act of imagination that is a Beaumont story is deeply rooted in personal history. The office where Mr. Minchell works adding up figures on a manifest, is the office of a southern California trucking firm for which Charles performed similar, agonizing services in 1950. "King Richard" is one of the stone lions at the entrance to the public library on 5th Avenue near 42nd Street, which he often visited while living in New York.

  To those who knew him best, the trappings and imagery of his stories are fun house mirrors through which his real life can be glimpsed: people, places, actual events. There was the early loss of his father, and strained relationships with his mother; a pair of maiden aunts in Washington who raised him--eccentrics to say the least; and periods of serious illnesses as a child. All appear repeatedly in his stories.

  The most familiar character of all, though, one that appears time and again in different guises, is alone or has only one other equally powerless person to talk to; is sometimes the possessor of a unique gift or talent, sometimes not; and must, through an act of daring or personal risk, achieve recognition and appreciation.

  "I'll be seeing you," the stranger in the crowd says. "That's right," Mr. Minchell says from his seat atop the lion. "You'll be seeing me."

  Fear not, old friend, we see you still.

  * * *

  THE VANISHING AMERICAN

  * * *

  He got the notion shortly after five o'clock; at least, a part of him did, a small part hidden down beneath all the conscious cells--he didn't get the notion until some time later. At exactly five P.M., the bell rang. At two minutes after, the chairs began to empty. There was the vast slamming of drawers, the straightening of rulers, the sound of bones snapping and mouths yawning and feet shuffling tiredly.

  Mr. Minchell relaxed. He rubbed his hands together and relaxed and thought how nice it would be to get up and go home, like the others. But of course there was the tape, only three-quarters finished. He would have to stay.

  He stretched and said good night to the people who filed past him. As usual, no one answered. When they had gone, he set his fingers pecking again over the keyboard. The click-clicking grew loud in the suddenly still office, but Mr. Minchell did not notice. He was lost in the work. Soon, he knew, it would be time for the totaling, and his pulse quickened at the thought of this.

  He lit a cigarette. Heart tapping, he drew in smoke and released it.

  He extended his right hand and rested his index and middle fingers on the metal bar marked TOTAL. A mile-long ribbon of paper lay gathered on the desk, strangely festive. He glanced at it, then at the manifest sheet. The figure 18037448 was circled in red. He pulled breath into his lungs, locked it there; then he closed his eyes and pressed the TOTAL bar.

  There was a smooth low metallic grinding, followed by absolute silence.

  Mr. Minchell opened one eye, dragged it from the ceiling on down to the adding machine.

  He groaned, slightly.

  The total read: 18037447.

  "God." He stared at the figure and thought of the fifty-three pages of manifest, the three thousand separate rows of figures that would have to be checked again. "God."

  The day was lost, now. Irretrievably. It was too late to do anything. Madge would have supper waiting, and F.J. didn't approve of overtime; also . . .

  He looked at the total again. At the last two digits.

  He sighed. Forty-seven. And thought, startled: Today, for the Lord's sake, is my birthday! Today I am forty--what?--forty-seven. And that explains the mistake, I suppose. Subconsciou
s kind of thing.

  Slowly he got up and looked around the deserted office.

  Then he went to the dressing room and got his hat and his coat and put them on, carefully.

  "Pushing fifty now . . ."

  The outside hail was dark. Mr. Minchell walked softly to the elevator and punched the Down button. "Forty-seven," he said, aloud; then, almost immediately, the light turned red and the thick door slid back noisily. The elevator operator, a birdthin, tan-fleshed girl, swiveled her head, looking up and down the hall. "Going down," she said.

  "Yes," Mr. Minchell said, stepping forward.

  "Going down." The girl clicked her tongue and muttered, "Damn kids." She gave the lattice gate a tired push and moved the smooth wooden-handled lever in its slot.

  Odd, Mr. Minchell decided, was the word for this particular girl. He wished now that he had taken the stairs. Being alone with only one other person in an elevator had always made him nervous: now it made him very nervous. He felt the tension growing. When it became unbearable, he cleared his throat and said, "Long day."

  The girl said nothing. She had a surly look, and she seemed to be humming something deep in her throat.

  Mr. Minchell closed his eyes. In less than a minute--during which time he dreamed of the cables snarling, of the car being caught between floors, of himself trying to make small talk with the odd girl for six straight hours--he opened his eyes again and walked into the lobby, briskly.

  The gate slammed.

  He turned and started for the doorway. Then he paused, feeling a sharp increase in his heartbeat. A large, red-faced, magnificently groomed man of middle years stood directly beyond the glass, talking with another man.

  Mr. Minchell pushed through the door, with effort. He's seen me now, he thought. If he asks any questions, though, or anything, I'll just say I didn't put it on the time card; that ought to make it all right .

  He nodded and smiled at the large man. "Good night, Mr. Diemel."

  The man looked up briefly, blinked, and returned to his conversation.

  Mr. Mincheli felt a burning come into his face. He hurried on down the street. Now the notion--though it was not even that yet, strictly: it was more a vague feeling--swam up from the bottom of his brain. He remembered that he had not spoken directly to F.J. Diemel for over ten years, beyond a "Good morning" . . .