No Birds Sing Here

by Daniel V. Meier Jr.

  Malany never once pretended to notice the young lovers. She was too absorbed in the scene. She breathed in the cold mountain air like an anoxia patient on oxygen. The couple turned to glance at the scene, then indulged in another period of fondling before they walked back to their car and left.

  Something of Beckman went with them, drawn from him in a painful extraction of unwilling breath. He looked around at the mountain and valley, and it was a harsh and primitive sight, alien and devoid of humanity.

  “Are you ready to go?” he asked Malany.

  “Beckman, you mean you could leave this? How cloddish can you be? I could spend the rest of my life here.”

  Beckman shrugged and walked toward the highway. Malany waited until he assumed the posture of a determined hitchhiker.

  “All right,” she said. “I hate it. Did you hear? I hate it, Beckman, stop! You ingrate, you intolerant bastard!”

  Malany ran toward the car, lifting her black dress to knee length. Beckman didn’t like playing games with her. He really wanted, genuinely wanted, to go, to make it to California alone if necessary, but he didn’t want to be responsible for her injuring herself. He heard the car start and half turned to see it coming straight for him. Malany was behind the wheel, her face twisted with rage.

  There was nowhere for him to go. A jump to the left would send him over the edge of the mountain. Jumping right would require two long steps to clear the car. And by the time he considered it, it was already too late—the car was too close. Malany stomped on the brakes a few feet from him. Beckman heard the force of it, like the deep sound of a fifty-gallon metal drum dropped on end. The car slid on all four wheels to within a foot of him. It was a moment or two before Beckman realized that he had been holding his breath and that, despite his will to move, paralysis had solidified his body.

  “Beckman!” Malany shrieked from her opened window. “Beckman, get in. We’re going together, Beckman, do you hear? We’re going together!”

  When Beckman was able to control his legs, he started moving away from the front of the car as cautiously as if it were a predator ready to strike.

  “Only if you let me drive out of these hideous mountains.”

  The car leapt forward a couple of inches. Beckman stepped back until his heels were dangling over the edge of a rock.

  “All right, goddamn it!” Her lips continued to move behind the windshield. She jerked on the parking brake. The car rolled forward another inch, just touching Beckman’s pants.

  Carefully avoiding a look backward and fearing that some unknown force might yet draw him over the edge, Beckman slid around the body of the Oldsmobile to the driver’s side. He looked at the empty space where he had defied the force of Malany’s madness. There he saw parts of sky and the tops of trees sloping down. His mental vision had been right. The image he saw in his mind was what he saw before him now. He glanced over at Malany and at her black clad form, knotted in rage, her face streaked with craziness. He backed the Oldsmobile away from the ledge and out onto the road.

  “Malany,” he said. “Please don’t speak for the next twenty-four hours.”

  Beckman shrugged and started the long, low gear coast down the mountain. He was feeling irrationally guilty and was angry with himself for feeling this way. It was pointless, meaningless. Malany had set the rules from the very first, and when the plans failed, theoretically the rules no longer applied. Yet she had hunted him down and, after choosing the paraplegic, now insisted on Beckman’s company to the point of murder. Beckman wasn’t sure that his reasons for going with her now were not simply fear for his life, or that he was still drawn to the dark figure of Malany; her strange, convoluted mentality, her private orbit of mystery.

  He continued to drive until they were out of the mountains and into the foothills of Tennessee. It was almost dark, the fuel was low, and Beckman was beginning to feel sleepy. He passed a sign establishing Knoxville as forty miles away. He would never make that, so he began looking for a suitable place to park the car. Malany had moved to the back seat an hour ago and had lost herself in her book of poetry.

  Several miles ahead, Beckman saw a group of buildings that seemed to have merged into one. A painted sign, lit by flashing lights, advertised MOTEL, GAS, EATS, BEER & BILLIARDS. He pulled into the gas station part, filled the tank, and drove the next hundred feet to the motel part.

  “I know what you said,” Beckman told Malany, “but I’m going to tell you this. I want a decent night’s sleep on clean sheets. I want to wash the grunge off my body, and I need to eat something.”

  Malany glared at him with two black pits for eyes.

  “I need some money, Malany. You always have money. God knows where you get it. I’ve been wanting to ask you about that anyway. Where do you get the money you keep in that envelope?”

  Malany handed over a roll of bills. Beckman counted out what he thought the room might cost, and enough for a truck stop meal.

  Beckman took a long hot shower, dug out a change of underwear from his bag, tried to shave with a month-old razor blade, looked at his stubble for a long time and decided to let it grow if it didn’t come out red. Malany was lying on the bed reading her poetry book, ignoring him.

  “I’ll be back in about an hour.”

  Malany gave no indication that she had heard him.

  In the EATS section of the building, Beckman found an empty table.

  Sitting at the counter had always seemed a little like eating at a trough. He ordered the chopped steak special and waited, listening to the truck drivers at the next table talk of “smokes,” radar detection devices, speed limits, and “gov’ment” interference in their “bid’nes.”

  The place was lit in brilliant white fluorescent light. Every flaw, every chipped plate and wedge of dirt was clearly exposed. The outside was completely blotted out except for occasional truck lights passing across the large window. The cracking voice of a female country singer, wailing about adultery and divorce, filled the terrible spaces between live human sounds.

  Beckman finished the gravy-smothered meal, paid for it, and eased by two highway punch-drunk truckers swallowing coffee and uppers. He wasn’t anxious to go back to the room and sit in the heat of Malany’s fury. What was she angry about anyway? Because he hit the road? Beckman was genuinely afraid Malany might actually kill him next time. Also, she needed him—or rather, she had not needed him when they first met.

  He stopped under the neon sign to the billiards room, a flashing red arrow shot down toward the door. Beckman could hear the jarring clash of the hard balls hitting together with enough force, it seemed, to break apart, although he had never actually known of one breaking. The thought seemed never to be considered by players. Were the balls truly indestructible? Did anyone care?

  He went in, intending to waste a couple of hours—enough time for Malany to fall asleep—and took the first available seat next to one of the tables. One of the players, a leather-jacketed man between twenty and forty with a winged Harley Davidson patch over his left pocket and a half-burned cigar in one side of his mouth, eyed his opponent’s shooting. Beckman guessed they were locals out for a big night. The opponent bit his lips and concentrated on the shot. It was a difficult one, the number four ball in the corner pocket. The shot would have to go between two balls and bank off the side at the proper angle to make it. The opponent sighted the path with his cue stick, shook his head.

  “Aw hell, boy. Go ahead and shoot. It’s only a Lincoln.”

  The opponent wasn’t going to be rushed. He walked slowly around the table, looking at the shot from all promising angles, then readied himself, leaning over the shooting side and taking practice jabs at the cue ball. Then, with an orgasmic release, struck the cue ball. The ball shot cleanly between the two obstacles, bounced off the side with decreasing speed, and rolled straight toward the four ball. The players, and Beckman, watched intently as the cue ball tapped the four ball with just the right amount of force to send it rolling toward the pocket.
The opponent had begun to smile, but something happened. The four ball seemed to wobble. It touched the tip of the pocket’s corner, where it spun to a stop on the rim of the hole.

  “Son of a bitch,” the opponent breathed without passion, as though the very breath he had used to utter his tragic surprise was knowingly useless. The man in the leather jacket grinned joyously at his shift in fortune. He shoved his cigar in the other corner of his mouth and triumphantly began chalking his cue tip.

  “I ’preciate you settin’ me up like that, Slim,” he said with a slight smile.

  Although Slim, remembering that it was “just a game,” tried to smile, he was a man who had been given a sentence of execution. The man in the black leather jacket, called “Hoss” by his opponent, leapt back into the game, swung his cue stick like a sword, and tapped the four ball with enough English to send the cue ball swirling into position for the five ball. Hoss sank seven balls all the way up to twelve, each ostensibly done with the irreverent carelessness of a man used to good luck. When it came down to the actual execution, that is, actually going through with a shot, Beckman noticed the intensity of Hoss’s concentration. He felt sure Hoss had psychokinetic ability, but how developed was it? Hoss’s opponent went after the next shot like a man resigned to suicide, and missed.

  “Oh shit.”

  The partner kicked the floor with his heel, then punished the cue stick with a hard slap of his hand. He was finished, the game was decided. He reached into his jeans pocket, brought up what was probably the last bill he had (it was a Lincoln), and tossed it toward the table where it floated to a soft landing next to the cue ball. Hoss grinned and watched as the money drifted down.

  “Aw, come on, boy. At least finish the game.”

  But his opponent had already racked his cue stick and was loping, hunched and small, toward the door. Hoss shrugged and laid his cigar on the edge of the pool table. He began, as methodically as an assassin, to sink the remaining balls. Beckman remained, matching the final exhibition of skill, acknowledging with a nod the successful completion of difficult shots which, by now, he was convinced took more than simple manual dexterity.

  Hoss was aware of Beckman’s presence and his interest in the game. He waited until he was sure of Beckman’s riveted attention before making what he considered a “good” shot. When the last ball had dropped into the pocket, Hoss stood up next to the table, surveyed the empty green field, and calmly chalked his cue stick. He looked over at Beckman and signaled with his finger.

  Beckman, crouching on his high stool, leapt down like a bird and, straightening himself to homo-erectus form, went to where he was being summoned. Hoss would not play for less than $5 a game. It took that, he said, to sharpen the competitive edge and help him concentrate. Beckman, although he had spent many hours watching other people play, had never actually played the game himself.

  He knew the rules, the scores, the terminology, but not how to put his spirit into the cue stick. How could he make a wooden cue stick become a living part of his mind and body? This he would have to learn. Yet wasn’t this even closer to the practice of psychokinesis than what he had to do at the restaurant where he had been at the mercy of Herschel’s foul penis and the primitive derangement of his boss?

  Here, on the pool table, he could be in control. He could move the balls anywhere he wanted. If he was strong enough, the most he could hope for was total command or, at least, a draw. He couldn’t lose.

  Hoss racked the balls into a neat triangle. He shook the triangle several times until the balls made a concordant rap. He then rolled the triangle of balls to the center of the table, placing the tip on the spot, then deftly removed the varnished wooden form without the slightest disturbance to the balls.

  Hoss smiled, put his cigar back in the preset corner of his mouth, dug around in his jacket pocket, then flipped a nickel into the air, catching it in one hand and slapping it on his leathered wrist. Beckman, to his surprise, won the toss and positioned himself for the break.

  He lined the cue ball up directly with the point ball. Unfortunately, his psychokinetic energy would be dispersed and, for any decided purpose, would be useless. The best he could do would be to concentrate on the cue ball as he had watched Hoss do, and rely on the statistical probability of one of the balls going in. He thought about it, sighting down his cue stick. The chances on this shot were in the shooter’s favor. He had witnessed only one break that did not put at least one ball in. He concentrated on the cue ball and the path it would travel to the point ball. He could see the point of impact on the triangle. Sheer force would make the difference, the wonderful, living energy only he could deliver.

  The cue ball seemed to swell twice its original size and grow as dense as lead. Beckman concentrated until his face felt hot and his temples throbbed. Everything would have to be delivered by the tip of the cue stick to a point slightly above center on the cue ball. He heard himself grunt as the cue stick traveled, burning through his hand to its target. There was a “crack” like the sound of rocks breaking. The triangle exploded into a mad spectacle of ricocheting, colliding balls. Beckman counted three dropping in almost immediately. The remainder rolled to positions all over the table.

  “Hot damn!” Hoss said. “Sh-e-e-e-it!”

  Beckman studied the table. He was lined up for a deflection shot on the one ball. Not a bad situation, really, but to be effective he would have to hit the cue ball so that it would not only sink the target ball but roll in a straight line to the left for a position on the two ball. Control of the cue ball was now most important. If he could sustain his energy, he could “run” the game.

  Beckman sank the two ball, but his concentration was diverted for a moment toward the two ball when it touched a corner of the pocket. The cue ball rolled short of its desired position so that to make a success out of it, Beckman would have to bank the shot thirty degrees off the side. He concentrated on the cue ball until sweat started to form on his hands and face. He even reached up and wiped his brow to see if he was actually sweating blood. The sweat that he had thought stood out like thorny beads on his forehead showed up as a dirty smear on his fingers. He lay over the table sighting the shot, hands out spread like an oriental supplicant. And then, what he had hoped for happened.

  The cue ball seemed to pulsate like a pre-Nova star. Its surface seemed to flow in swirls of molten plastic lava. A part of Beckman’s consciousness seemed to leave his mind and enter the excited cue ball. That part of his mind wandered through the soulless interior of the ball, caressing every plastic molecule of its structure, infusing them with independent life. Beckman, in his mind, saw what was going on inside the cue ball. He could see the clear, rounded globs of complex polymer chains all interconnected in an elastic high-strength configuration. He was paralyzed by this vision until the voice of Hoss shattered it into exploding bits of color.

  “This boy’s a hustler, Louis. He’s trying to make me sweat. Go ahead, boy, shoot. It’s only $5.”

  Beckman shot, but the instant the stick connected with the cue ball he knew he had missed it. The cue ball banked at the right angle, tapped the three ball, which rolled toward the pocket but stopped short. Hoss grinned, then lit another cigar, bouncing it up and down between his teeth.

  “Louis, bring us a couple of beers, will you?” He looked directly at Beckman. “You’d like a beer, wouldn’t you, boy?”

  “No thanks.”

  Hoss shrugged. “Well, I ain’t often that generous, but it don’t matter. I’ll drink it myself.”

  The bartender brought two mugs of beer and sat them on a stool near Hoss. He held a mug of beer and cigar in one hand and gulped the other beer with the other hand. Beckman counted five seconds before the contents of the glass vanished. Hoss lowered the mug slowly. His chin was covered with foamy streaks. He wiped his mouth and chin with the palm of his hand and placed everything, including his cigar, on a small shelf next to the wall.

  The one house rule, posted everywhere Beckman happened
to look, forbade any article whatsoever from being placed on the tables. Hoss made the shot and sank the next two. Beckman made the next two. Hoss made one but missed the next one. The game went on like that, neck and neck; not so much a game of skill but more. Beckman firmly believed it was a contest of minds. He won the first match by a few points. Hoss reluctantly dropped his $5 onto the table, swilled his other beer, and demanded another match, insisting on it as a right of the loser.

  The second game was played with even stronger intensity. Hoss put aside his cigar and jokes and fought with the tenacity and single-mindedness of a desperate man. The conflict soon drew the attention of other players in the pool room. Bets were taken, encouragements shouted to both players. Hoss won, but it was a close match that left him visibly shaken. Beckman asked for the best two out of three, but Hoss refused. Beckman’s backers began threatening violence.

  “All right, all right. But this is gonna be the last one. I ain’t got time to fuck around here all night just so’s you fellas can gamble.”

  “Bullshit, Hoss. I seen you play all night against someone you can beat,” one of the bystanders said.

  Hoss leapt toward the speaker, but was held back without much effort. He shouted over the heads of the spectators, “You just wait, you hear? Just wait till I’m finished.”

  Someone shoved a draft beer into Hoss’s hand and he sipped it, watching with subsiding fury as Beckman readied himself for the break. The break was very successful with four drops, but Beckman had used up most of his vital energy in the last two games. He was counting on being able to keep Hoss out of step.

  Halfway through the game, Beckman knew that he wasn’t going to make it. He wasn’t able to hold his concentration for more than a few minutes at a time. The green field of the table looked more faded and marked with uncountable burns. He excused himself while Hoss was preparing to make his decisive shot. He found a pay phone out of sight of the table and called Malany. She sounded conciliatory and redemptive. Beckman explained what had happened; that he didn’t have $5 and that he didn’t want her to pay for his mistakes.