CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

IT WAS NINE O’CLOCK WHEN HE FINALLY ARRIVED AT THE HOUSE.

Before he went inside, he stood on the porch and stared at his car parked in the drive. He had all but forgotten Todd’s promise to have the new tire on the car by noon today. No matter. Todd had not made good his promise. The rear tire was still flat. It figured.

He let his gaze drift back toward the town. The clouds, which had been scattered throughout the day, had now settled into a solid and impenetrable mass. Far in the distance, he saw the illuminated Ferris wheel and roller coaster rising above the mist which had gathered over the valley, their hazy lights mingling with the changing hue of the night sky. Faintly he could hear the hum of voices and laughter. Other than that, the town was almost unnatural in its stillness.

When he entered the house, Nancy handed him a note. It was from Chandal. She wanted Ron to meet her and Kristy at the pavilion at ten. Kristy’s puppet had been entered in the contest. Ron read the note again before he looked up. When he did, Nancy was gone.

He went immediately into the living room and helped himself to bourbon. Plenty of time, he reflected. He needed a drink. The house was oppressively quiet. It had the musty odor of withered flowers. He stared at the chandelier, the elegantly stuffed chairs and couches with their lavish floral patterns and immaculately placed doilies. Mrs. Taylor, he thought, had put her life, her very soul, into this house.

He had another drink. Yet he could not bring himself down. An overwhelming sense of doubt gripped him. He felt trapped and incapable of doing anything about it, as if he were an instrument reacting to a gravitational field set up by powers beyond his comprehension. He suddenly felt that he was heading to a destiny he was powerless to foresee or control.

He poured himself another bourbon and drank it down. Then he went upstairs and took off his clothes. Naked, he went to the window and opened the drapes. The night remained black before his eyes, the glass mirroring his own reflection. He noticed for the first time the teeth marks and bruises on his legs.

He took a long breath, drew the drapes, then ducked into the shower. He ran the water steaming hot. His flesh reddened. Yet he did not adjust the temperature. It was as though he wanted to burn away the memory of hideous little faces, purify his body, ridding it of the faint remains of any contact he had had with the children. He scrubbed himself vigorously with soap, rinsed off, then scrubbed again. Then for a long time, he just stood still and let the water pinch his flesh.

Suddenly he jerked his head around, thinking he’d seen a shadow move outside the shower curtain, the curtain itself moving slightly. It seemed incredible that someone had entered the room while he was showering, but the feeling was there.

The shower curtain moved again.

Slowly he reached out and shut off the water. He stood motionless, water and sweat coursing down his face. It was difficult to tell the difference.

And then it moved, billowing the shower curtain. He lurched forward, ripping the curtain aside. The bathroom was empty. Everything was quiet. He couldn’t see into the bedroom, only its dim light filtering through the bathroom doorway. It contained no shadows.

Carefully he stepped from the tub and wrapped a towel around himself. He moved forward, stopped. Written in lipstick across the mirror:

“I WAS QUEEN. THEY”—

The message ended abruptly.

He cautioned himself to remain calm; he must not get caught in a sudden hysteria. He moved closer to the mirror and saw a lipstick tube lying in the sink. Whoever wrote the message had fled in a hurry. The letters on the mirror were childlike, the e’s and a appearing to have been written by a first-grader. He was sure a child had written the message, and not a grownup. But why? What was the child trying to tell him? “I WAS QUEEN. THEY”—

“Mr. Talon?” a voice shrilled from below. “Are you up there?”

It was Mrs. Taylor’s voice. Hurriedly Ron took a wet washcloth and rubbed away the message. It left the mirror streaked. He reached for a towel,

“Mr. Talon?” The voice was closer now.

“Yes, Mrs. Taylor. I’m in the bathroom.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

“I’ll be right down.” He ran the towel over the glass several times until all traces of lipstick were gone. He took the lipstick tube and dropped it into the wastebasket. Satisfied, he stepped into the bedroom and began to dress.

Something was radically different about Mrs. Taylor. In fact, nothing about her was similar to the way she had appeared. She sat alone at the dining table, her hair thrust under a turban. She had applied her makeup with a vengeance. Her lips were red and shiny, like an emergency light. Heavy eye-shadow put a strange and unfamiliar menace into her expression. Her eyes appeared dull and lifeless.

“Oh,” she said with a start. “I didn’t hear you come down.”

“Sorry.”

“I must apologize. I shouldn’t have disturbed you.”

“It’s all right,” Ron said. “I thought I’d freshen up before meeting Chandal.”

“She’s gone to the carnival.”

“I know.”

“Don’t you look handsome this evening,” she said, as though she had only first laid eyes on him. “Mardi Gras. Tonight is Mardi Gras. Can you feel it? Such an exciting time.”

She paused to put her hand into her purse and produced a small silver box. Out of it she took three shiny green capsules. “I’d almost forgotten to take my medicine today,” she said. “Mardi Gras does that to me. Makes me forgetful.”

Something about the way she moved, the kind of listless energy with which she rose to her feet, her slow shuffle to the kitchen door, made Ron envision someone older, much older than the woman who now turned back to smile at him.

“Run along,” she said. “You don’t want to miss the contest. Kristy’s puppet has been entered, you know. Exciting. Most exciting.”

She smiled and disappeared from view.

Sweeping along the main street, Ron now approached Todd’s gas station, when he saw a dark form wrapped in a cloak, standing back in the shadows. So still was the figure, and so dim was its outline, that it almost went unnoticed.

“Who is it?” Ron asked and as she moved, the overhead light fell full on her pale face as she fixed her eyes on Ron.

“Nancy?”

She moved forward, her face contorting under the strain of trying to speak. Tears had formed in her eyes and began to run down her cheeks. Pitifully, she reached out to him, as though beckoning him, as though telling him to come away with her into the shadows.

Ron did not move. Not even an eyelash.

Slowly, she backed deeper into the shadows. Her mouth moved painfully, trying to form words, trying to tell him something. Each whimper, each attempt appearing more painful than the last. Of course, Ron thought. She was the one who had left the message for him on the mirror. Not a child at all.

He started toward her.

“Mr. Talon!” a voice boomed and Ron spun around to face the gas station. Matthew Todd came toward him with quick strides. When Ron turned back, Nancy had disappeared into the darkness.

“Are you going to the carnival?” Todd asked.

“Yes.”

“Good. I’ll walk along with you.” Almost before either man had taken a step, he added: “Sorry about those tires.”

“What?”

“Didn’t you get my message?”

“No.”

“Spoke to your wife. The tires won’t be here until tomorrow. I know you’re getting edgy, but I won’t let you down. Those tires will be on your car by noon tomorrow.”

They passed under the glittering archway to the carnival. The crowd was twice as thick as it had been on Saturday night. Everyone seemed amassed together in convulsive knots.

Ron stared ahead into the flashes of light where everything moved, changed; where the Fat Woman on a platform sat in her chair with huge tears of laughter rolling down her cheeks. She toyed playfully with a dwarf who sat placidly upon her knee. Her howls of laughter continued uninterrupted as they moved on. Judy was off in the corner beating Punch half to death with her stick. In the distance, a chant:

“Judy had a baby boy.
Judy had a child.
Judy had a baby boy.
By six—the boy was wild!”

On another platform a hooded man uncoiled a long black thing, his bare arms and chest matted with clumps of red hair, his dirty pants tucked into his boots. A boy, no more than seven, sprang onto a stool, a cigarette stuck in his mouth. A crack of the whip and the cigarette flew from the child’s mouth. The crowd roared its approval. “Again! Again!” they screamed. The boy laughed. Laughed. Those eyes. Those old eyes in a child’s face.

Ron turned away as the whip cracked again. Shrill cheers rose and fell in an atmosphere of insanity. “Dumb,” he muttered.

“But fun,” Todd added. “Admit it, Mr. Talon. You probably haven’t let loose like this in years.”

Ron looked at him carefully; and when the man smiled, he said: “And I’m glad I haven’t.”

“You’re just lying to yourself. We all like to see these things,” Todd said.

Ron forced his way through the crowd, arms pushed and shoved him as he passed, and he followed a powder-dusty path past a line of tin fences and wire walls and with Todd still at his elbow, he halted.

“What’s the matter?” Todd asked.

Glancing around, Ron said: “The pavilion? I don’t see the pavilion.”

“It’s the other way,” Todd said, all the time staring into Ron’s eyes... a deep watch... and then he laughed and moved away. “It’s the other way,” he chuckled and vanished into the crowd.

In spite of his confusion, and in spite of a slight sense of panic, Ron wheeled around and, with vicious strides, fought his way back through the crowd until he had reached the pavilion.

Only a small group of people were clustered around the stage to the rear of the hall. Insects committed suicide above their heads, diving headlong into the yellow lights on the ceiling. The rest of the hall was dark. As Ron moved through a room piled high with folding chairs and tables and other unidentifiable objects hidden under sheets in the steamy darkness, he saw Chandal and Kristy sitting off to the side in the front row. He moved down the aisle as another puppet was held in the air. A soft applause followed. A child to the rear began to cry and let her head fall to her chest. “Shut up,” the mother said and laughed. “You’ll win next year.”

“Del?”

Chandal turned. “Oh, Ron. Where have—”

“Del, I have to talk with you.”

“Ssssh!” people hissed.

“Come outside. Bring Kristy.”

“Please.” A woman tugged on his arm. “I’m trying to see.”

Ron squatted.

“And the last puppet to be judged,” the woman on the stage exclaimed, “belongs to Cynthia Harris.” Ron’s eyes darted to the platform. The woman held up an oddly shaped puppet. People were on their feet now, applauding loudly. A few children in the crowd whistled and stamped their feet. Ron looked at the puppet more closely and saw that it was two figures molded into one. A mother holding her baby to her breast.

Then all the people were together in front of the stage. “Cynthia Harris has won!” someone shouted. “She’s the winner!”

Then he heard the low rumble and roll of wheels on wood in the darkness. From the front of the hall a huge wooden cart was pushed forward. Like a pair of blazing eyes, two storm lanterns that hung on ropes from a wobbly crossbeam overhead guided its way. Slowly it moved through the darkness, its large gaping slat-board front looking like a devouring mouth.

Ron waited in the corner, where the dark shadows met the harsh glare of stage light, and watched the mothers putting their children into the cart. He started when he saw Chandal lift Kristy up into the wooden enclosure.

“Del.” He moved suddenly toward her. “What are you doing?”

Her face flashed with untroubled laughter. The heavy scent of burning timber filled the hall. “You don’t know what the others know,” she said. “You don’t know at all.”

“Kristy, get down from there!” he cried.

Chandal turned to stare directly into his eyes. With a start, he noticed her pupils were huge, dilated, her gaze hazy. Then suddenly she laughed and seemed to regain focus.

“Ron, take it easy. It’s all part of the fun.”

She took hold of his arm as the wooden cart began to move out the door. Around the cart flashed bright laughter, singing, people hugging each other, all in one action, one sound. Moans rang out. Voices shouted. “Rise! Rise!”

Out in the open air a stampede of voices. A chorus of joy released. The voices rose.

“Mardi Gras.”

“Mardi Gras.”

Chandal joined the second chorus. Her voice was high and hysterical as Ron tried to stop the cart from going any further. Everyone seemed to scream with unreasonable laughter as they observed his actions. Chandal’s voice rang among the others.

“Mardi Gras.”

“Mardi Gras.”

Ron’s eyes riveted to her face, the stern yet soft downturn of her lips, her mild frenzy. He trembled. Chandal held onto him. Her fingers tightened. People shouted, “Make way, make way,” at the top of their voices. Ron’s eyes darted to the cart. Kristy? Where was Kristy! Then he saw her, only her face, soft white with a shy stare downward beneath her lids and lashes. She was smiling. A shadowy cluster of faces cut into the light from one of the hanging lanterns... she was gone. From all around voices chanted.

“Rise! Rise!”

A full chorus of voices now as the chant grew louder... so many women’s voices shrilling for the earth to come forth. On the peak, their voices trailed off. A small, wizened old woman leapt upon the cart. She goaded them on, her thin arms waving and pointing to the distant glow in the night sky. The chorus rose again, their voices seeming to sway in time to the old woman’s movement.

Ron tried to see past the woman. A wave of heat crossed his face and flew down the channel of his throat, bypassing his mouth, on the way to his belly. He swayed. All swayed. Kristy? Where was she?

But he saw only the bright red glow of the lanterns swinging low. Now they were no longer lanterns. Stars. Shooting stars bursting and grinning... He was suddenly blinded by their fierce red glow. Without a shout or scream, without even an ounce of energy left, he allowed himself to be led. Chandal walked with infinite calm beside him.

The cart was drawn to a halt in front of a blazing fire. The air cracked with heat and excitement, and then a strange new chant began. Women’s voices rose now as before. A child shrieked: “Look, mama, flames. FLAMES!” The crowd laughed. Then all focused on the fire which grew huger and huger with each passing moment.

The first child stepped to the edge of the cart, bowed her head slightly and, with a gesture of disdain, threw her puppet into the fire. Bewildered, Ron watched the flames leap higher toward the sky as people screamed and shouted praise for the mountains that were theirs. Another puppet went into the flames—ecstatic voices cried out to the earth below: “Rise! Rise!”

Chandal drew Ron close as the great fire lashed out...

...and he could feel her bones and flesh, and his insides melting, himself caught in a blazing, wooden-bodied holocaust. “Oh, God,” he thought. “Oh, God,” he moaned as he stood motionless among the hushed crowd—watching the puppets burn.

Fire is my blood.
Fire is my life.
When the sun fades,
Fire is my home.

Want is a fire.
Desire is a stone.
But life is the earth.
Which belongs to me.