by Jerry eBooks
He was getting used to the building’s pattern of noises—the echoes of closing doors, the faint thump of bags doing down the garbage shoot, the thumping treadmill from six to seven sounding from the apartment above his—when the rhythm his new life was slipping into broke.
A knock sounded from the door. It was a single strike. In the moment of anticipation before the second knock, he thought of Mrs. Wise bearing a bottle of wine, or the super, with more work to do.
By the time the second knock came, he’d reached the entry. He thought one of the tenants on floor might be moving something in or out of their place and had accidentally bumped against his apartment.
He opened the door. The hallway was empty. Down either end of the hallway, the elevator and stairwell doors were closed. There was no note or package left. He glanced at Mrs. Wise’s apartment. She’d given up leaving the door cracked open for the night. He checked the garbage room, because that was how to do a security sweep.
He settled back on the couch to watch TV. Smiling faces and a laugh track rolled through him like a lullaby.
The knocking came again. Once. Twice. The second one, quicker to come than the first time. He was at the door at the third knock. Opened it, again, to nothing.
He returned to the couch and waited, not really watching the show, listening for sounds. He felt like he had early in his career, when he had to go out on field exercises, standing on sentry duty, expecting the inevitable probe.
Later in the night, when a couple of shots of bourbon had dissipated the tension, he remembered things he’d heard, in the night, in all the places he’d slept during his twenty years in the military, and in the eighteen years that came before, in the places he’d spent those years waiting to be adopted. Booms, close and distant. Bumps. Cracks. Creaks. Sighs. Screams. He’d turned off the lights, but had not closed his eyes, yet, when the knock came again.
He let the second and third knock pass, waited for a fourth which never came. He couldn’t go to sleep without knowing. He got up, looked through the peep hole. Cracked the door open.
He listened carefully for the suppressed laughter of kids coming from one of the apartments on the floor. He’d seen a teenager come out of the one by the elevator, and there were a couple of pre-teens at the far end of the hall who left for school around the same time as he did every morning. Halloween was the season for pranks, and if friends were over and parents were out, the new guy was an obvious target.
Six long floors of pre-war apartments, close to public transportation and school, favored family tenants. There were probably a lot of other restless kids simmering behind the walls, ready to blow off some steam.
Living mostly off base wherever he’d been stationed, he wasn’t a stranger to living alongside families, kids. He’d played counselor with enough men and women and their troubled kids over the years. He understood, more than they could know. He knew what he’d gone through, knew what he’d missed, growing up.
He couldn’t get too irritated by the prank. He’d been a handful himself. Nobody had time for him, and he’d found ways to get into trouble. Attention-seeking behavior, the psychiatrist had called it. He hadn’t meant for the fire to go out of control. He was thankful his juvenile record had been sealed, so he could join.
He went back to bed. Waited for another knock on the door. He felt a twinge of unease. He’d spent a lot of years, waiting for someone to come to his room, to take him home.
Somewhere, a television voice droned on.
The clock alarm woke him. He got up, went to work selling masks and costumes to kids and grown ups so eager to be somebody or something else.
The knocking continued, every night, after he came home. Always, in threes.
The first was the hardest. After he stopped coming to the door, it became louder. Harder. Sometimes, it shook the door. Rattled the hinges. He was amazed Mrs. Wise didn’t use the noise to approach him, or that the others neighbors didn’t complain.
“I’m putting up some shelves and pictures,” he told Mrs. Wise, when he found her lingering outside her open doorway, very slowly going through her mail. “Does the hammering ever bother you?”
“Oh, no, Mr. Cassidy,” she said, eying him as if she’d lost forty years, and he’d lost twenty, and they were both without cares and full of hunger for simple things. “You’re as quiet as a mouse in there. Need any help fixing the place up? I’m very handy, you know.”
He studied the door’s surface, the frame and hinges for damage, found nothing. Not even a scratch.
He worked seven days, though the company only paid him for six, and stayed late to check inventory and straighten out the store. He took his time getting home, and went straight to bed.
The knocking continued. He heard desperation in its insistence.
The super shrugged his shoulders when Roger mentioned the problem. “Pipes,” he said.
“There aren’t any pipes near the doorway.”
“It’s an old building, Mr. Cassidy.”
“What does that mean?”
The super shrugged his shoulders again and walked away.
The next night, he didn’t go to bed right away. He poured a glass of bourbon and kept the bottle on the side table next to the couch. He opened the door a crack, like Mrs. Wise watching for prey.
He listened to the quiet, to the elevator machinery whine into motion at a call, the faint throbbing of modern, beat-heavy music, a truck accelerating on the street. A woman, weeping.
The knock blasted through the apartment. The door jumped up and down. But not in.
Roger moved on impact. In a moment he could see through the crack into the hallway. There was no one standing outside, one hand raised, the other holding the door in place.
He stood waiting for the next knock, and when it came, there was still nothing outside. No ball from an air gun, or anything else that might have flown or been thrown.
The door trembled, but refused to budge. The noise of the blow, weaker, lingered longer than the first, not quite an echo, but more than a strike. It might have been an invisible hand pushing against wood after the strike, sliding down slightly. The third was short and sharp. Perfunctory, like an obligation fulfilled. The blows came from nowhere.
He sat by the open door, listening to the knocking, watching the door jump, until he slid to the floor and fell asleep. The next day, he was late for work. No one noticed. The store and its employees continued functioning, just like the service, his role absorbed by others.
“What did you mean,” Roger said, the next time he saw the super, “this an old building?”
The super looked at him for a while. His expression, locked into a mask of everyday labor and the routine of survival, relaxed a little. Roger caught a glimpse of something familiar in the folds and wrinkles of his face, a reflection of himself in the future, weathered by memories.
“The place has a history,” the super said.
“Everyplace does.”
“That’s right.”
“Are you saying the place is haunted?”
The super pursed his lips. “Look, I don’t like talking about that shit. It makes people nervous. Draws the wrong kind in, the freaks. The landlord, he doesn’t want to hear about it. This is a family place.”
“Maybe that’s why it’s haunted.”
“Look, whatever’s going on, don’t pay it any attention. The mind plays tricks, you know. There’s what’s real, and there’s what’s going on in your head. Keep the shit in your head to yourself and you’ll be alright.”
“Were you in the military?”
“Yeah. Just like you.”
Before Roger could ask any more questions, the super walked away.
He dragged the couch closer to the door and slept on it, waking up at the knocking to look through the slight opening into the empty, lonely hallway.
“Who are you?” he asked, at least once a night. “What do you want?”
Sometimes the air shimmered. Twice, a vague outline,
like the remains of a dream in daylight, fluttered by the door only to vanish when he bolted upright, heart racing.
Halloween week, business boomed. He lost himself in every aspect of work, from cashier to dragging boxes out of the back to helping people pick their costumes. He found himself drawn to the younger kids, the shy ones, overwhelmed by the noise and bustle, lost in the dreams and nightmares of others. He’d learned about the latest characters from games, TV shows and cartoons and guided them gently to what they might find familiar. But he enjoyed helping the ones who, with a little gentle support, a light hand on the shoulder, found the confidence to go beyond what they knew, what everyone else did. He felt their excitement when one of those children broke out of the shell imprisoning them to discover and assemble their own dream out of the storm of masks and props and costumes, even if their parents were not always happy with the result. Some parents seemed more comfortable with the familiar.
He found himself remembering old Halloweens, picking bits and pieces of costumes out of a garbage bag or making them out of those bags and other scraps, and going out in troops, supervised by staff who took them to the stores in commercial districts so they wouldn’t be reminded of what they were missing in the residential neighborhoods.
On Halloween day, the store was gutted of merchandise. The last, few stragglers were stripping the walls and shelves bare. The employees were nearly all gone. Roger felt the change coming, the new season about to start. He was tired, and the next day he was due to report to the department store to start orientation. He nursed the sadness of leaving something behind. It reminded him of being discharged.
He went home early, suddenly eager to catch the trick-or-treaters. He left the door wide open and sat by the door, bags of candy ready, at his post where he belonged, as much as anyone would have him, as much as he had in him to give. He might have been back on base, hosting the Halloween party for the families of the officers and enlisted men.
Kids marched through the building under family escort. Their excited chatter about what was in their bags echoed in the halls, stairwells, elevator shaft, though the drone of adult gossip about neighbors and news nearly drowned their voices.
Roger doled out candy and chatted with other tenants and families from the neighborhood bringing their kids over to visit friends and family in the building. Even the super came by, trailed by a tribe of his own children, nieces, nephews, and distant cousins.
He felt welcomed, in a light, casual way, fitting in, as if molded to the specifications of the unit to which he’d been transferred.
Mrs. Wise kept her door open, as well, and he allowed himself to flirt a little with her, though he stayed inside the threshold of his apartment and refused to invite her in even as she hinted they could give out their candy together. She drifted off when the traffic died down, sullen but hopeful, inviting him, if he wasn’t too tired, to stop by later. She was going to be up, anyway.
Roger settled into the couch by the door. He kept the door half-way open, welcoming stragglers.
He remembered the knocking. Waited.
Still, the sound wouldn’t come. He wondered if the crowds, the burst of life, had chased away its cause. Or, perhaps, if a return to his own sense of normalcy had made him less sensitive to the building’s noises and his own imagination.
He poured a glass of bourbon. Rode the currents of his contentment through the silence.
A gentle rap at the door made him raise his head, expecting to see a clutch of unusually well-behaved children under the watchful eye of a straight-backed adult waiting patiently for their treats.
A boy stood, alone, in the doorway. Eight or nine, reddish-brown hair a tangle, the child lacked a costume but glimmered as if his skin, over-sized jeans and t-shirt had been painted with a clear substance that reflected light in an odd way. He’d seen nothing like it at the store, and caught himself planning to ask the distributor about the effect so he could get the item for the kids attached to base next year. The boy looked like none of the children who’d stopped by—his clothes, his hair, they all seemed out of an old black and white movie, the Our Gang series, or the Dead End Kids.
The current of his happiness died, leaving him stranded.
The boy wasn’t carrying a bag for his treats. There was no sign of an adult in the hallway. He wouldn’t speak the familiar refrain, trick or treat.
He faded, like a figure being swallowed by mist.
“Where are your parents?” Roger asked.
“Did you ever kill anyone?” the boy asked. He flickered, hanging on to the picture of what he was. “When you were a soldier?”
The voice was clear, if distant. A curious child’s voice, fearless, confident.
“I was in the Air Force. It’s the pilots who kill people, usually.”
“What did you do?”
“I was a technical sergeant.”
“What kind of technical sergeant? Did you shoot missiles?”
“No. I was in support services. I managed and supervised programs. Education. Recreation. Fitness. Food. Things that make life easier for people.”
“You saw people die.”
The flat tone of the statement chilled Roger, more than the memories of his only combat deployment. “Yes.”
“You worked with dead bodies. Took care of them.”
He hesitated. He wasn’t comfortable with the direction of their conversation. The boy seemed to have taken whatever gossip he’d overheard about the building’s newest addition and folded the information into the mechanics of his own, private world.
Roger understood. Something terrible had happened to the boy. He had to be careful. Gentle. “Yes,” he said. “Mortuary services. I did that, too. What’s your name, kid?”
“You miss it?”
The question struck home. “The military? Not really. I’m retired, but I’ve been busy. My name’s Roger. You got a name?”
“I meant, dealing with the dead.”
“You live in the building, right? Let me fix you a bag of stuff, and I can take you home. You remember their number? I can give your parents a call, let them know you’re okay.”
“They’re not here. Where are your kids?”
Roger measured the boy’s engagement in their conversation with the danger in his running away. “Don’t have any,” he said. “Never married.” He started packing a plastic bag with candy.
“Are you gay?”
He looked to the boy. The shimmer had vanished. He seemed as solid as the wall. The door. Roger’s own hands. “No. Things never worked out. I moved around a lot.”
“Things don’t work out when you stay in one place, either.”
He tied the bag, shook it to show the boy how full it was of candy. “Ready to go find your parents?”
“Yes.”
“Then let’s go.”
“I don’t know how.”
“Well, then, you said your parents weren’t home. They must be at a neighbor’s place, right? At a party? Do you remember the floor? The apartment number?”
“I said they weren’t here. They’re dead. They’re someplace else. I can’t get to them.”
Roger couldn’t find the words he needed to speak. He thought of Mrs. Wise, but couldn’t see how she would help.
“Why?” he asked, at last, because there was no place else to go.
“They won’t let me.”
“Who?”
The boy was at his side, in the apartment. He hadn’t seen the boy move.
The boy took his hand. He felt nothing. Then a faint tingling. A chill.
Memories surfaced, long corridors lined with doors and the last rays of sunset filtering through trees and windows to illuminate random spots in a room, setting dust and pale patches of skin and the ridges of bunched coverlets on fire with light.
“You’re the angel of death,” the boy said. “You should know.”
“No,” Roger said. He looked down at the boy, into the wilderness of his hair. It didn’t seem possible th
at he could be there, next to him. And at the same, it seemed possible that he couldn’t be anyplace else. “No,” Roger went on, “I’ve never killed anyone. That’s why I joined the Air Force. So I wouldn’t have to pull triggers on anybody.”
“Not every angel kills,” the boy said. He wouldn’t look up at Roger. His head was turned to the doorway. “At least, not all the time. Some also take care of the dead. Help them along. Get them to where they’re going. Make them feel better.”
“Like Michael, you mean.”
“Right.”
He didn’t think the boy knew anything about the archangel Michael. Or cared.
In a blink, the boy was gone. He was looking down at his own empty hand. The hallway was clear.
The world fell away. Abandoned him, as it had long ago.
He watched the door. Waited for a knock. For the comfort of three, all in a row, calling for his attention.
The knock came from down the hall. It was faint, barely a tap. Weak. Desperate.
He went to the doorway and saw the boy down the hall, passing through the stairwell door.
In the emptiness of that moment, in the coldness of its unreality, he saw the crossroads at which he stood. Another crossroad, like the one that he’d stood at when he was young. Back then, there’d been a clear choice. Down one path, a brief arc of glory, of surrendering to appetite and rage and all the pain he’d carried in his young life, followed by tragedy and death. Down the other, a life connected with others, a part of a system, a piece of the vast machinery of death, fitting company for pain and rage, yet working to avenge himself against all that had happened to him by helping instead of destroying.
He’d reached the end the road he’d picked, and come to another crossing. The paths ahead were just as clear. His commanding office had said it was time to stand down. The military was shrinking. He could make more as a civilian. With a pension, and the money he could make with his skills, he could live like a king. Settle down, he’d been told. You’re still young. Plenty of time to raise a family. Live life.
He could live life, as far as he knew how. Or be something more than a soldier, a comforting shadow in an engine of destruction, a hotel manager or resort director in a world of pain. What that might be, he had no idea.