Collected Fiction

by Kris Neville

  “When I was comin’ back from the store,” Ma said, “do you know what she said about me, plain as day, talkin’ to that Johnson woman, an’ pretendin’ not to see me? she said, right out loud, so I’d be sure to hyear, That Smight women is an old hag,’ she says. Hag she calls me. An’ I said to her, ‘Mrs. Wilson the Lord’ll punish you,’ I said, ‘for talkin’ about a Christian woman like that.’ ” Ma’s mouth began to jerk and one of her hands began to worry her apron.

  “Please, Ma, Levina said. “Don’t go get startled. Hit’s all over. You promised you wouldn’t get started off again, after just before Poppa Mink came home.”

  Ma said, “An’ I told her, I know things, I told her. What I could tell you, I told her, would make your blood turn cold, hyear.” Ma’s rocker began to pop and squeak. “Yes, an’ the Good Lord seen fit to show me! Ah! The cross he makes me bear!” Wringing her hands, she jumped out of the chair: “Oh, my God, when can I cross that glorious river? Oh, my God, my God, when? How long, how long must Your servant wait?”

  Mink braced himself.

  “An’ I said to this hussy, I said, there’s a day a-comin’, an’ it’s not too far away . . .”

  Ma’s eyes blaced and her mouth puckered as if she were going to cry. Then she blinked her eyes rapidly. She opened and closed her mouth. She began to sing. “Let’s all gather at the river—oh, let’s all gather at the river—yes, let’s all gather at the river,

  “the bea-uuuuu-ti-ful

  “rivvvvver

  “of God.”

  Ma shook her head. “Hallelujah!” she cried. “Oh, Hallelujah! I seen! I seen!” She began marching up and down the room, her eyes flashing. “The day of reckoning has come! Praise God! Mine enemies are swept away as the rains, praise God! He has brought down the cities of Ninevah and Sodom and Gomorrah!

  “(Praise Him!) Yes, yes, yes! Yea! He has struck down mine enemies—

  “in their beds—in the midst of their sin—

  “—and depravity. Yes, yes, yes!

  “Oh, when . . . when . . . when will You take Your servant across that glorious river into Beulah Land?”

  “Stop it! Now Ma, you stop that this minute!” Levina cried.

  “You see it, God? Oh, You see how they treat me? My own family?

  “My own flesh and bone?”

  She stamped her foot heavily. “Lamb of God!” she cried.

  “Ma!” Amelia interrupted. “I can’t stand no more of hit! I jest can’t stand no more of hit!”

  Ma blinked her eyes and said quietly, “Why child . . .” She breathed deeply. “Folks hate me,” she whimpered. “Even my own family.” She started to sniffle. “I don’t have to stay when I hain’t wanted.” She stopped in the middle of the floor. Her breathing began to return to normal.

  “I guess I better to fix for supper,” she said. “I guess you’re all as hungry as a pack o’ wolves.” Turning around, she started off, wiping her eyes on the edge of her apron. She walked into the kitchen, making puzzled little noises deep in her throat.

  After she was gone, Levina said, “But she—she don’t even know.”

  Her voice was almost a whisper. “She’s been raving at God on and off, like now, but she don’t really know. We came in. She wouldn’t even talk about it. Talks about going to Church come Sunday, Joey going back to school, you keep on working—us gonna get married now that we can settle down and not have to move.”

  Mink tried to reassure them. “She’s sort of . . . withdrawn . . . But she can still handle it; don’t you worry.”

  They felt Levina’s fear. Joey went quickly to her. “Don’t,” he said. “Do you want to be like them? We’re Smights. Just remember that. Nothing can hurt Smights.”

  —the thing Mink remembered on the long walk home. He felt the need to talk and to explain not only Ma—but himself as well—to the children.

  “When I first met your Ma,” he said, “She used to be a great one for readin’. Catalogues, newspapers. Even a whole book, once. More’n most folks. But bein’ Smight on top o’ that . . . People all thought she was a little queer. An’ the harder she tried to explain things to ’em, die queerer they thought she was, an’ then when we left Cold Camp, an’ the rest of the Smights, she really didn’t have nobody left to talk to at all. Then, when the first baby came—it was birthed early, an’ it looked like it mighta been a boy inore’n anything eke—Smights is odd ones for havin’ all kinds of things for babies—well, after that, she sorta took to religion an’ readin’ the Good Book, an’ maybe a couple of hymns.”

  “Don’t matter no more,” Joey said.

  “Remember that time Ma told us about that there twister due to wreck McAlester the next week?” Amelia said. “Wasn’t anybody believed her then, either.”

  “I oughta go help with the supper,” Levina said nervously.

  The rest of them sat in the parlor listening to the kitchen sounds. Mink felt he had, once again, failed them.

  At length Ma summoned them to the table.

  It was a subdued meal. Ma said nothing, but her whole body continued to twitch and jerk.

  When supper was over, they sat in the parlor again. After a while, Joey got up and said, “I think maybe I’ll go out and watch the fire.”

  A bit after that, Mink said, “I guess I’ll go out for a breath of air.”

  Outside there was a warm spring wind blowing in from the ocean, and as experience would have led one to anticipate, it was carrying the smell of seaweed and fishes. Joey was standing in the shadow alongside the house, and Mink walked over to him.

  “What’s up there on the roof?” Joey asked.

  Mink looked up. He did not recognize it. “I don’t know.”

  “Oh.”

  Mink said, “Let’s go over and see what happened to the woman next door.”

  Joey was watching over to the left, where the cat was at work. It was tearing down all the houses on that side of the street. “Okay, Mink.”

  The stars were starting out, and the moon was like a thin slice of lemon rind in the sky; it would have been dark and gloomy if it were not for the fires. The gravel scrunched underneath their feet. The cat was resting. Mostly it was quiet, except for a sound or two from the town.

  They stepped up onto the porch.

  At the door Mink stopped. “Reckon we ought to knock or jest go right in?”

  “I suspect we may’s well go on in.”

  Mink opened the door. It was as dark as the Pit inside.

  Mink struck a match and found the light switch. The lights failed to work. The match went out after fluttering briefly.

  Joey, who did not need any light to see, was already looking around the room.

  The curtains were tom off, and the curtain rods were bent: an all-at-once bend—which is always the case with bent curtain rods, where the bent part crinkles in because the tube is hollow; die upholstery was pulled out of the sofa, and the overstuffed chair popped springs all twisted. The table was splintered, as if someone had pounded it with a club. The rug was halfway ripped up. On the floor the television set, a jumble of coils and wires and smashed tubes, peered up malevolently with its milk white eye.

  Mink lit another match.

  “She’s in the kitchen,” Joey said.

  They threaded their way across the living room and through a little hall that opened out into the kitchen.

  There lay Mrs. Wilson.

  She had dropped a suit case. The suit case had sprung open, spilling lace things and little bottles and strapped things over the floor. There was a large black handbag ripped open beside the suitcase.

  Mink had to drop the match. He lit another.

  Mrs. Wilson was staring up at him. Her eyes were round and wide and fixed. Her mouth was its usual red, only now, against her blanched face, it was a ragged, bloody slit, and the teeth behind the drawnback lips were dry. The flaming hair spilled out all around her head, and her neck was twisted to one side.

  There was a large red welt across her foreh
ead where some object had struck her a fierce blow.

  Mink dropped the match, almost burning his fingers. The light lasted for quite a while after the match had burned out, and the light vanished.

  The chair across the room had been waiting for the darkness to come again. It made dull little scrapings on the linoleum as it closed in slowly and murderously on its next intended victims.

  Joey turned around and stared hard at it. It knew it had met a Smight. It slunk off.

  Mink lit another match. His hand shook.

  The two of them without speaking made their way through the wreckage of the front room and out into the yard again. Snow was falling gently.

  Joey cocked his head to one side. “Ain’t no more radio or TV broadcasts,” he said. “Anywhere.”

  All over the city there were many little fires burning brightly. And the cat, lashing its tail back and forth and growling angrily, was crossing the street to start on the other side. It made a wavery shadow that fell at their feet.

  They stood.

  Joey said sadly, “Maybe Ma ought never to have told them—Maybe if she hadn’t, they’d not made fun of her all the time . . . and . . . and . . . maybe, Mink—she’d be all right now. Like she used to be, back before about Kansas, I guess. She wasn’t so bad, yet.”

  Mink hardly listened. They stood on the slight rise looking out over the ocean. He thought: here we stand, the Smights. Able to, to handle universe, if need be: like a little key in a lock, a part of it all—

  Mink felt a deep pain of lostness and longing. His thoughts darted in the prison of necessary indifference: beyond emotion.

  Tonight, now that it was over, Ma would cry: in the deep, lost, lonesome way she sometimes had of crying. She would surface from the confusion that was her inward life and look about and think a bit and cry tonelessly and forelornly before ignoring and denying and finally forgetting. But for a little while the extent of the disaster would penetrate and she would see that the world of her vision again had interpenetrated the world of her life. She would know that things were no longer changing: they had changed.

  Ma would cry. She would not understand why he could no longer go away to work; why the supermarket no longer had fresh vegetables; why the water and electricity were shut off; why the buses did not run. She would miss all those people. So would he; so would Joey and the girls.

  And Ma—she would teach the sofa to talk and ask it endlessly, where is all the people? and tell it endlessly of the slights and injustices she had suffered and about the nature of good and evil.

  Mink looked at Joey. He wet his lips.

  Joey turned away, talking half to himself: “Something had to start it, Mink. Things don’t go mad by themselves: either people or worlds. Something caused it. Maybe it was a Smight did it, hundreds of years ago, changing some little thing a little; and it’s been building up ever since. Something had to. I’m going to let her see what it’s like and let her get good and lonely. Then when space and time get a little nearer together, I’ll try to walk us all back to Kansas or before. If I can. I don’t know she can stop it; but after she’s seen what it’s like, maybe she’ll try . . . maybe she’ll try like she never tried anything before.”

  Mink shivered with hope. He glanced nervously toward the West. He forced his voice to be calm and disinterested. “Think there’s any chance of the ocean catching fire tonight?”

  “No,” Joey said with equal calmness. “It’s too hot.”

  THE WINNING OF THE MOON

  The enemy was friendly enough. Trouble was—their friendship was as dangerous as their hate!

  GENERAL Finogenov notified Major Winship that the underground blast was scheduled for the following morning.

  Major Winship, after receiving the message, discussed precautions with the three other Americans.

  Next morning, before the sunlight exploded, the four of them donned their space suits and went and sat outside the dome, waiting. The sun rose with its bright, silent clap of radiance. Black pools of shadows lay in harsh contrast, their edges drawn with geometric precision.

  Major Winship attempted unsuccessfully to communicate with Base Gagarin.

  “Will you please request the general to keep us informed on the progress of the countdown?”

  “Is Pinov,” came the reply. “Help?”

  “Nyet,” said Major Winship, exhausting his Russian. “Count down. Progress. When—boom?”

  “Is Pinov,” came the reply.

  “Boom! Boom!” said Major Winship in exasperation.

  “Boom!” said Pinov happily.

  “When?”

  “Boom-boom!” said Pinov.

  “Oh, nuts.” Major Winship cut out the circuit. “They’ve got Pinov on emergency watch this morning,” he explained to the other Americans. “The one that doesn’t speak English.”

  “He’s done it deliberately,” said Capt. Wilkins, the eldest of the four Americans. “How are we going to know when it’s over?”

  No one bothered to respond. They sat for a while in silence while the shadows evaporated. One by one they clicked on their cooling systems.

  Ultimately, Lt. Chandler said, “This is a little ridiculous. I’m going to switch over to their channel. Rap if you want me.” He sat transfixed for several minutes. “Ah, it’s all Russian. Jabbering away. I can’t tell a thing that’s going on.”

  In the airless void of the moon, the blast itself would be silent. A moth’s wing of dust would, perhaps, rise and settle beyond the horizon: no more.

  “Static?”

  “Nope.”

  “We’ll get static on these things.”

  A small infinity seemed to pass very slowly.

  Major Winship shifted restlessly. “My reefer’s gone on the fritz.” Perspiration was trickling down his face.

  “Let’s all go in,” said the fourth American, Capt. Lawler. “It’s probably over by now.”

  “I’ll try again,” Major Winship said and switched to the emergency channel. “Base Gagarin? Base Gagarin?”

  “Is Pinov. Help?”

  “Nyet.”

  “Pinov’s still there,” Major Winship said.

  “Tell him, ‘Help’,” said Capt. Wilkins, “so he’ll get somebody we can talk to.”

  “I’ll see them all in hell, first,” Major Winship said.

  Five minutes later, the perspiration was rivers across his face. “This is it,” he said. “I’m going in.”

  “Let’s all—”

  “No. I’ve got to cool off.”

  “Hell, Charlie, I feel stupid sitting out here,” Capt. Lawler said. “The shot probably went off an hour ago.”

  “The static level hasn’t gone up much, if at all.”

  “Maybe,” Lt. Chandler said, “it’s buried too deep.”

  “Maybe so,” Major Winship said. “But we can’t have the dome fall down around all our ears.” He stood. “Whew! You guys stay put.”

  HE crossed with the floating moon-motion to the airlock and entered, closing the door behind him. The darkness slowly filled with air, and the temperature inside the suit declined steadily. At the proper moment of pressure, the inner lock slid open and Major Winship stepped into the illuminated central area. His foot was lifted for the second step when the floor beneath him rose and fell gently, pitching him forward, off balance. He stumbled against the table and ended up seated beside the radio equipment. The ground moved again.

  “Charlie! Charlie!”

  “I’m okay,” Major Winship answered. “Okay! Okay!”

  “It’s—”

  There was additional surface movement. The movement ceased.

  “Hey, Les, how’s it look?” Capt. Wilkins asked.

  “Okay from this side. Charlie, you still okay?”

  “Okay,” Major Winship said. “We told them this might happen,” he added bitterly.

  There was a wait during which everyone seemed to be holding their breath.

  “I guess it’s over,” said Major Winship, getti
ng to his feet. “Wait a bit more, there may be an aftershock.” He switched once again to the emergency channel.

  “Is Pinov,” came the supremely relaxed voice.

  “Help?”

  Major Winship whinnied in disgust. “Nyet!” he snarled. To the other Americans: “Our comrades seem unconcerned.”

  “Tough.”

  They began to get the static for the first time. It crackled and snapped in their speakers. They made sounds of disapproval at each other. For a minute or two, static blanked out the communications completely. It then abated to something in excess of normal.

  “Well,” Lt. Chandler commented, “even though we didn’t build this thing to withstand a moonquake, it seems to have stood up all right.”

  “I guess I was just—” Major Winship began. “Oh, hell! We’re losing pressure. Where’s the markers?”

  “By the lug cabinet.”

  “Got ’em,” Major Winship said a moment later.

  He peeled back a marker and let it fall. Air currents whisked it away and plastered it against a riveted seam of the dome. It pulsed as though it were breathing and then it ruptured.

  Major Winship moved quickly to cut out the emergency air supply which had cut in automatically with the pressure drop. “You guys wait. It’s on your right side, midway up. I’ll try to sheet it.”

  He moved for the plastic sheeting.

  “We’ve lost about three feet of calk out here,” Capt. Lawler said. “I can see more ripping loose. You’re losing pressure fast at this rate.” Major Winship pressed the sheeting over the leak. “How’s that?”

  “Not yet.”

  “I don’t think I’ve got enough pressure left to hold it, now. It’s sprung a little, and I can’t get it to conform over the rivet heads.”

  There was a splatter of static.

  “Damn!” Major Winship said, “they should have made these things more flexible.”

  “Still coming out.”

  “Best I can do,” Major Winship stepped back. The sheet began slowly to slide downward, then it fell away completely and lay limply on the floor.

  “Come on in,” he said dryly.

  WITH the four of them inside, it was somewhat cramped. Most of the five hundred square feet was filled with equipment. Electrical cables trailed loosely along the walls and were festooned from the ceiling, radiating from the connections to the outside solar cells. The living space was more restricted than in a submarine, with the bunks jutting out from the walls about six feet from the floor.