Plantation of Chrome

by R. J. Coulson

  "That's our janitor," said De Gracy, a hint of apology in his voice.

  Grundy nodded courteously. De Gracy and the man were looking at him, as if expecting him to leave, but Grundy stayed, feeling awkward like a child at a dinner party. De Gracy excused himself and walked over to Grundy, took him by the arm and turned him away from the rest of the men.

  "These men are a new asset to the Pit," whispered De Gracy. "I'm trying to get a deal with them, and I'd appreciate if you weren't here while I get a close."

  "I don't understand," said Grundy. "What kind of deal?"

  Grundy heard the hatch close behind them.

  "We're talking about some new... merchandise."

  Grundy nodded, still not understanding De Gracy's subtlety and apparent discretion.

  "Can we get on with all this, yeah?" said a voice behind them, one Grundy hadn't heard before.

  "So please," said De Gracy, "just go back into your room, and we'll be out soon."

  Grundy immediately accepted De Gracy's proposition, and as they turned around, as the voice that Grundy had just heard was imbued with a face, that face, Grundy staggered backward, tripped and fell. The man stepped forward, towards Grundy, putting out his hand.

  "Woah, woah, woah, I didn't mean to scare ya like that," he said. It was the same crooked nose, same wide eyes, grey around the iris and not white. Nothing was natural about him. Nothing.

  Grundy stood up by himself, holding a hand over his mouth to prevent himself from breaking out in tears. He managed to recompose himself, nodded goodbye to the men, and rushed out the main hall.

  "What's up with him?" said a voice behind Grundy as he scuttled down the corridor, slamming the door behind him.

  "Yeah, what a..."

  But Grundy was too far away, the voices muffled once more. He locked himself in his own room, and he started flailing around, muttering unheard words in despair. He knocked over a mop and a bucket filled with sponges. He looked down at the mop, picked it up, and with the bestial rage of an animal, he broke the mop in half. The wood splintered violently, and Grundy was left standing with two pieces of it, one in each hand. He grunted with anger, his rage only stunted by the feeling of a wound reopening in his heart, and he fell to the floor and wept in agony, the deep, deep bellows of his anguish resounding out far beyond his room and far beyond the Pit like the unfelt tremor of an invisible bell.

  “It's him, It's him, It's him.”

  As Grundy wandered down the street, pausing intermittingly to rid himself of the shudders of fear that overthrew him, he remembered the night when Eckleburg shot himself and his family. He remembered that he had seen Eckleburg that night, seeking some kind of solace, but he had seen Grundy's true face, and it had made him run off, sent him away, banishing him from what he must have seen as his last sanctuary.

  The streetlight outside Hamilton's barbershop flickered, and Grundy looked up at the lightless windows of Stone's apartment. He hurried into the hallway and up the stairs, but Stone’s door was locked.

  He wasn’t home.

  Grundy nodded to himself, as if admitting some sort of defeat. He sat down next do the door and looked around. The room he was in, the big vertical expanse with the stair as its spine, Grundy himself the big, beating heart, was so, so dark. Grundy closed his eyes and started breathing heavily, and as he did, as he was entranced in his own thoughts, he heard someone coming from downstairs. There were two pairs of footsteps, and when Grundy opened his eyes, he saw Noah Stone and himself, ghosts of the past, come up the last flight of stairs and up towards the door. Grundy was carrying a bag in his hands.

  "I usually don't have my apartment key on me," said Stone. He bent down and lifted the welcome mat, took the key from under it, and unlocked the door.

  "You don't have to do this," said Grundy as Stone went inside. Stone looked back at him, squinting his eyes.

  "That's right," said Stone. "But if I didn't want to, do you think I'd have pulled you out of that hole in the stage?"

  Stone continued inside, and Grundy followed inside.

  The keys clattered as they were thrown on the coffee table next to the couch and the two arm chairs. Grundy looked around. It was all very dark, and even when Stone turned on one of the lamps by the window, there were still pockets of darkness that seemed impenetrable. He looked at Stone, who seemed to be home in the darkness, not noticing it at all.

  "You almost seem ashamed to be here," said Stone.

  "You're very kind, sir... But I don't belong here."

  Stone filled with glass of water and put it on the table.

  "You look thirsty," said Stone, nodding at the glass. He took off his coat and sat down in one of the armchairs. Grundy stood for a while, but then he joined Stone, carefully grabbing the glass of water and emptying it in one mouthful.

  "Thank you, thank you so much."

  "Don't mention it," said Stone, leaning back into the chair. It started raining outside. "But tell me, what were you doing inside the old theater?"

  "I..." said Grundy, ashamed of the answer he knew he was about to admit. He felt like lying, but when he looked at Stone, the lie inside of him turned to ashes as quick as lint caught fire. "I lived there," said Grundy, hinting at the bag that he had put down beside him. "This is all I own in this world."

  Stone nodded, his gaze momentarily glancing across the scars in Grundy's face, and Grundy, ashamed, looked away. He studied the dresser in the corner, the bed in the far bedroom, and the mirrors by the door, his focus finally settling on a display of chrome figurines on the table between them.

  "They're beautiful, aren't they?" said Stone. He picked up one of them, but Grundy couldn't see what it was supposed to look like. "I got them from my father," said Stone, twirling the shiny piece of chrome. "There used to be many more of them, but he lost some, and then I lost some, and," Stone chuckled, “these are all I have left."

  But just as he said that, a glimmer caught the corner of Grundy's eye. He looked down beneath the coffee table, and his eyes fell on a little speck of light in the darkness. He bent to pick it up and looked at the small figurine in his hand. It was as if it had two faces, as if two figures had accidentally been molded together into one. He handed it to Stone.

  "It seems you have one more than that," said Grundy.

  "Ah, yes, thank you. Thank you..." said Stone, looking expectantly at Grundy, searching for a name to say. Grundy thought for a while, seeing a chance to throw away his past.

  "Grundy," he then said.

  "Noah Stone," said Stone, putting out his hand towards Grundy. The shook, and the memory ended inside Grundy’s mind.

  Still sitting outside the door, Grundy remembered that night, and it did him good, he felt, to remember it once again. He lifted the welcome mat next to him and picked out the key. He stood and unlocked the door. The apartment was completely dark, and Grundy stumbled to find a lamp. His feet crumpled something on the floor, and no matter how careful he walked, there was always something in the way. He found a lamp, and, switching it on, it revealed the mess that Grundy had walked around in. Was this really still Noah Stone's apartment? Half empty bottles everywhere, littered newspapers, all of them either crumpled on the floor or wide open on the coffee table as if an invisible man was still reading them. Broken glass was scattered in one corner of the kitchen next to an abandoned dustpan. Grundy finally sat down. He wanted to turn off the light, but he suddenly felt luckily distracted. He knew that he had technically broken into Stone's apartment, but he also knew that Stone wouldn't mind. Grundy leaned back into the chair and tried breathing, tried relaxing. He wanted to skip forward in time, to see Stone now, to talk to him, and as he continued breathing, careful not to be stirred by the brambled thoughts of his mind, Grundy dozed off entirely.

  CHAPTER 24

  The sun's rays were patchy through the many trees of the forest. Clouds lingered in the sky, but only in a very soft layer, clearly showing the blue sky above. Solomon, a big, stoic man, looked up at them as he
walked through the forest, pulling a workhorse behind him. His heavy steps were slow and well-paced, and he walked forward with a momentum that seemed unnatural, checking to the horse once in a while, making sure it followed even though it was tied to him with reigns across its head and neck. He carried an ax over his shoulder, and beads of sweat were dripping down the dark skin of his smooth face, but he was smiling; smiling because he imagined their faces, how they would smile when he got home, and how he would embraced them, and he smiled again, and the clouds kept waving above his head, but Solomon had forgotten about the clouds.

  Birds chirped, first from one tree, then from another. Then a shriek of birds, and Solomon saw an entire murder of crows lift from the treetops that surrounded the house he was heading toward. Then another shriek of birds, but it wasn't birds shrieking at all, and when Solomon realized, when he started hearing the screams of women, the smile disappeared from his face and he bolted through the forest, the horse following with an anxious trot in its step. When he reached the edge of the forest, the horse stopping patiently behind him, he saw little columns of smoke rise from the house. Men with rifles were forcing people out the door and down the porch, lining them up next to each other in a long line in front of the house. Some were drunkenly throwing bottles through the windows, the smashed panes of glass mixing with the screams. Solomon saw some men lying on the ground, white men! And he recognized one of them as the owner of the house, but they were not dead, he guessed, only unconscious. He tried counting the men with rifles. Two there by the stables, three in front of the porch, one pissing by the bushes near the house, and one walking all over, his rifle lifted high, his voice loud with command and fury.

  "Why are you doing this?" asked one of the black men that was being forced outside, but he was swiftly silenced by the butt of a rifle.

  "No please, no..."

  But then, when Solomon saw them drag her out, his heart nearly stopped. She was coming out the door, dragged on by one of the men with rifles, and she was covering her little sweet face, and Solomon softly sobbed as he saw her tippity-toe down the stairs of the porch.

  "Please, Lord," he started praying to himself. "Please."

  But just then, immediately following his daughter, came his little son, and he was pushed down the stairs, and Solomon was gripping his ax, turning his knuckles white.

  She came out, too. She followed Solomon's son, and in her face - he tried so desperately to see her beautiful face - he saw an expression that he hadn't seen on any human being before or since. It looked as if she was crying through a smile, and she was looking after the little ones as they were brought in line, and even as she herself was brought next to them, fire burning around her, people yelling, windows smashing, she was still touching their little heads, still caressing their pretty little heads. And Solomon wanted them to turn around, and he wanted to call their names so he could see them, but then the leader pointed at the first man in the line, and every armed man came in as fast as they could, their faces contoured with meaningless rage, their rifles pointing in unison, and another murder of crows flew up as the first man in line was shot. The leader pointed at the next man, and the next, and the next, and they were all chopped down, murdered, and the next was no man, but a child, and he was lain to the ground as quickly and ruthlessly as the others before him. The horse shook its head, and Solomon calmed it down.

  Three more heads before they reached his daughter, counted Solomon. He didn't care if he died, and he grabbed the ax and started moving through the bushes, but there, amongst the last line of foliage, the border from what would make shadow man, he suddenly realized that he did care - he did care if he died. "I will do anything for you," he had said so many times.

  Two heads left.

  Looked her in the eyes and said it, pronounced it with his mouth and soul, promised her that he would...

  "I would die for you," he had said, and he recognized his own sincerity from back then, but now it was nothing but ashes in his mouth, sand through the tips of his fingers.

  One head left.

  He screamed silently as they killed the last person before his daughter, but then, just as his daughter's head bowed down, someone pulled the leader aside. They talked, away from the house.

  They were far away!

  And the others, too, saw Solomon. He counted them; only two by the line, the rest not paying attention now the killing had stopped. He felt the wooden handle of his ax. I could kill the two and drag my family to the forest, or just tell them to run, and they would, and they would run away into the forest, and they would live, and I could fight for them while they ran, or I could run with them, and we would all live.

  Solomon stepped forward. The leader was still talking, there was still time. Solomon stepped forward, up to the last line of shrubbery that concealed him, signaling the horse to go back. He could call her name, he was so close that he could call her name, and she would hear, she would hear! There was still time, but Solomon had stopped walking. The leader stopped talking and walked back to the line, and the men gathered on back, their motivation renewed, their rifles positioned. The weapons were pointed at her little head, and Solomon stood back, paralyzed. Time had run out; the only thing he had ever had, now gone. He had nothing, and even though his family was still alive that minute, breathing the same air as him, he had already acknowledged that they would soon be dead, and he dreaded how quickly man would embrace nothing over a little unseeable portion of everything. In their last minute of life, they were already dead to him.

  As Solomon walked deeper into the forest, he was unsure if he had seen or merely heard those last three gunshots. He tried remembering, but his mind was locked, incapacitated, loaded with the sounds of horror that he could still barely hear behind him. The ax dragged next to him as he continued deeper into the forest, his horse following with diligence, its head low, swaying from side to side, playfully grabbing branches at the very end of its reach.

  Solomon would stop at times, wondering where to go, but when he did, he found that he didn't care at all, and so he continued, randomly trudging through the forest, hoping that he would find a fitting end.

  He wanted to die, he thought, but he knew that he was lying to himself, and he wondered what would drive a person to volunteer for death. Everything about death was a lie, he thought. Everyone feared it.

  The sun was slowly climbing down, leaving behind it a reddish sky, and it looked as if the horizon was burning behind the smoke of a campfire that Solomon had just noticed. He stopped and hid behind some trees, making sure the horse was well behind him. In a small clearing in front of him, three people had set up camp. A campfire was burning, its crackle drowned by the drunken singing of the three men. They were surrounded by two small tents. Solomon looked across the camp and noticed now a fourth man, a black man, at the edge of their camp beyond the red hue of the fire, his body tied up with rope. Solomon recognized him as one of the older boys from the neighboring farm. A young man, scrawny and sinewy.

  Solomon now grabbed his ax with both hands, the temptive flame of redemption burning deep within the campfire, and none but he saw it, hesitation melting from his mind. He charged into the camp with a bellowing rage, ax overhead, his entire body rampaging towards the first of the three men. Solomon ravaged his ax across the man's chest, blood spitting onto their white tents, the man collapsing immediately. The two other men stood up slowly, one of them desperately searching his pack for some weapon or another, but Solomon had already slashed his ax deep into the man's skull. The third man kicked the campfire, and several fiery logs flew at Solomon, but the axd assaulter came forth through the fire, now a demon in heart and body, and he swung the ax through the air, the flame still alive in the iron of its blade, and the man slouched down to the ground, his eyes closing.

  Solomon hurried to the captive man, who was calling for help.

  "I am here," said Solomon. The knot on the rope was very tight, and Solomon dared not use the ax, fearing that he would hur
t the young man.

  "Hurry, Solomon!" said the young man. "Please, hurry."

  But Solomon's hands were shaking, his lungs at full capacity.

  "Hurry, hurry, one of them is coming!"

  Solomon looked back, seeing one of the men creeping up from the ground.

  "Hurry Solomon, hurry!"

  "Be still," said Solomon.

  "Solomon, Solomon, Solomon!" shrieked the young man, his heart beating outside his chest.

  "Stop saying my name!" said Solomon. "He'll hear!"

  Solomon looked back at the man who was still getting on his feet. The man's face was pale and scared, and there was something in its protruding features that Solomon feared he would remember forever, his crooked nose, greyish eyes.

  "Solomon, Solomon," said the young man, his voice creaky and broken like an unhinged wheel.

  "Stop saying my name! They'll hear you. Stop!"

  Solomon tried silencing the young man, grabbing him by the mouth to make him stop yelling. The young man's eyes ran with tears and he was still yelling through Solomon's grip.

  "Stop it, please!" begged Solomon, tightening his grip.

  The man by the fire stood up. Solomon looked at the ax on the ground. It was right between the two of them, and Solomon was afraid that the man would pick it up and attack, but the man ran away instead.

  The camp went quiet, and Solomon eased his hands off the young man, who had stopped screaming. Solomon sat down on the ground, exhaling, feeling that he could finally breathe. He looked up at the young man, whose eyes were strange, neither closed nor open. Solomon put a hand on the young man's shoulder, but there was no movement. The young man was dead.

  Solomon patted the horse along its mane. It shook its head, its eyes like black pearls, looking at Solomon. He took the reigns off the animal and stepped back, signalling to the horse to run away. The horse stayed, neighing, moving its head up and down.