Bad Stacks Story Collection Box Set (56 page)

Stitches? Lips?

He screamed, but the sound stuck at the top of his vibrating vocal cords. Faith came into view. She leaned over him, appraising the handiwork. “A silent tongue speaks no evil,” she said.

“And doesn’t put down the good work of others,” Reba said, looking to Faith for approval.

“That’s right,” Faith said. “I’m sorry we’re having to take time from our true work. Several children won’t get blankets this week because of Mr. Stanfield. But this task is perhaps just as important in the Lord’s eyes. This is a true charity case.”

Morris summoned all his effort and craned his neck. His clothes were sewn to what looked like the fabric pad of a mattress. He squirmed but could only move his arms and legs a few inches. He flexed his fingers, trying to make a fist.

“Alma, how was that tatting on his hands?” Faith asked.

Alma Potter beamed with satisfaction at being recognized by the circle’s leader. “I done proud, Faith. Them fingers won’t be typing no more lies for a while.”

Morris felt his eyes bulging from their sockets. The first tingle of pain danced across his lips.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Stanfield,” Faith said. “I don’t have any more morphine. The hospital’s supply is closely monitored. I could only risk stealing a few doses. But my sin is one the Lord is willing to forgive because it serves a greater good.”

The women were busy around him, their needles descending and lifting, the threads stretching and looping. The other Alma was busy down by his feet, her gnarled hands tugging at his toes. Lillian brought a scrap of cloth to his face, but Faith held up a hand.

For the first time, Faith smiled. “Not yet, Lillian. We can close his eyes later. For now, let him look upon good works. Let him know us by our deeds, not by his words.”

Lillian looked disappointed. Faith put a gentle hand on the old woman’s shoulder.

“A good blanket takes care and patience,” Faith said. “Hope takes patience. All we can do is our part, and let the Lord take care of the rest.”

“Just like with the sick children,” Lillian said.

“Yes. They’re sick, but never needy. As long as one person has hope enough for them all, they are never in need.”

Morris tried to communicate with his eyes, to lie and tell Faith that he now understood, that sick children were never needy no matter what the Kelvinator said, but his eyes were too cold and lost to the world of light and understanding. He was a cynic and had nothing inside but desperation. He gazed at the stained-glass Jesus, but no hope could be found in that amber face as the sunlight died outside.

The gauze of morphine slipped a little, and now he could feel the sharp stings as the needles entered his arms, legs, and torso. Reba was stitching up his inseam, her face a quivering mask of concentration as she worked toward his groin. Daisy’s tongue pressed against her uppers as she pushed and tugged in tiny little motions. Silver needles flashed in the glow of the lone gas lamp by which the sewing circle now toiled. From outside, the plate-glass image must have flickered in all the colors of salvation.

But from the inside, the image had gone dark with the night. Summoning his remaining strength, Morris ripped the flesh of his lips free of their stitches and screamed toward the high white cross above.

“Look, his eyelids twitched,” came a voice.

“There, there,” Lillian said, as if on the other side of a thick curtain. “You just rest easy now.”

“Where—” Morris was in the sewing room downstairs, flat on his back on the table, surrounded by piles of rags. They must have carried him here after they—

He brought a wobbly hand to his mouth and felt his lips. They were chapped but otherwise whole.

“I think he’s thirsty,” said Faith, who knelt over him, patting his forehead with a soft swatch of linen. She turned to the janitor, who stood in the doorway. “Bruce, would you get him a cup of water, please?”

As the janitor shuffled off, Faith again settled her kind, healing eyes on him. “You fainted. A big, strong fellow like you.”

“Must be—” The words were thick on his tongue. He flexed his fingers, remembering the sharp tingle of needles sliding through his skin, the taut tug of thread in his flesh. A dream. Nothing but a crazy, drug-stoked nightmare. “Must be the heat,” he managed.

“It’s okay,” Faith said. Gone was her severe and chiding tone. She now spoke in her gentle nurse’s voice. “We’ll take care of you. You just have a chill. Rest easy and wait for the ambulance.”

“Ambulance? No, I’m fine, really, I just need—” He tried to sit up, but his head felt like a wet sack of towels.

“Your pulse is weak,” Faith said. “I’m concerned you might go into shock.”

“That means we need to cover him up,” the other Alma said.

Faith smiled, the expression of all saints and martyrs. “I guess we should use the special blanket,” she said.

“Blanket?” Morris blinked lint from his eyes.

“We made it just for you. We were going to give it to you in appreciation for writing the story and let you enjoy it in the comfort of your own bed. But perhaps this is more fitting.”

“Fitting,” Daisy said with a hen’s cackle. “That’s as funny as Santa in a manger scene.”

Lillian approached the table, a blanket folded across her chest. Unlike the other quilts, this one was white, though the pieces were ragged, the stitches loose, the cloth stained and spotted. “We done our best work on this one,” she said. “We know a sick soul when we see one.”

“Threads of Hope sometimes come unraveled,” Faith said. Her sweet tone, and her soft touch as she felt his wrist for a pulse, was far more unnerving than her previous bullying.

“That’s right,” Reba said. “Sometimes hope is not enough.”

“And kids die and go on to heaven,” Lillian said. “The Lord accepts them whole and pure, but their pain and suffering has to go somewhere. Nothing’s worse than laying there knowing you’re going to die any day, when by rights you ought to have your whole life in front of you.”

Lillian helped Reba unfold the patchwork blanket. Morris saw the white scraps of sheet were actually varying shades of gray, cut at crazy angles and knotted together as if built in the dark by mad, clumsy hands.

“There’s another side to our work,” Faith said. “One we don’t publicize. If it had a name, it might be called ‘Threads of Despair.’”

“I like ‘Threads of the Dead,’” Reba said, in her high, lilting voice. Her remark drew a couple of snickers from the old women gathered around the table. Morris didn’t like the way Reba’s eyes glittered.

“I’ll write the story however you want it, and let you proof it before I turn it in to the editor,” he said, his throat parched.

“Cover him up,” Faith commanded. “I’d hate to see him go into shock.”

Morris once again tried to lift himself, but he was too woozy. Maybe he really did need an ambulance. And a thorough check-up. He was having a nervous breakdown. And these fine women, whom he’d insulted and belittled, were compassionate enough to help him in his time of need. Faith was right, he was the needy one, not those sick children.

As they stretched the mottled blanket over him, preparing to settle it across his body, Morris saw the words “Mercy Hospital Morgue” stamped in black on one corner.

Sheets from the hospital?

The cloth settled over him with a whisper, wrinkled hands smoothing and spreading it on each side. His limbs were weak, his mouth slack, as if the blanket had sapped the last of his strength. Though his skin was clammy, sweat oozed from his pores like newly hatched maggots crawling from the soft meat of a corpse. He was being wrapped in fabric even colder than his soul.

Threads from the dead, from those who had lost hope.

Sheets that would give back all that had gone into them.

A handmade blanket stitched not in the attic of the heart but in the dark basement of the disappointed.

“The ambulance will be here in twenty minutes,” Faith said. “Until then, cherish the despair you deserve.”

She tugged the blanket up to his chin, and then, with a final, benevolent look into his frightened eyes, she drew it over his face.

THE END

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NOTHING PERSONAL, BUT YOU GOTTA DIE

By Scott Nicholson

So you changed your name.

Not too smart. A name’s a personal thing, and you had to go messing with what your Momma gave you. What kind of thing is that? How do you expect anybody to respect you, after you go and do something like that?

Joey Scattione, he’s big time, don’t got nothing against you, not nothing personal. If it was up to him, just a slap on the cheek, you cry and say you’re sorry, we all go down to Luigi’s and eat pasta together, like in some Mafia movie. Whaddahell.

But this is business. And business means keeping your word. And standing up, playing it straight. But you hadda talk to Feds and the Feds can’t touch Joey, we all know that, Joey’s golden, but they get a little something on you, you lose your spine, your tongue starts running before your head turns the key, and all of a sudden we got a bad situation.

No, a person who would change his name would probably tell any kind of lie to save his own skin. It’s all about constitution. Some got it, some ain’t. Don’t feel bad about it. Better guys than you wilted when the heat came down. Changed your name and tried to skip town, all part of your constitution.

All perfectly understandable. But that don’t mean it’s forgivable.

We’ve known each other what—seven years? Why you got to go and not be Vincent any more? I liked Vincent, for the most part.

Aw, c’mon. Don’t start with this “Mikey, Mikey” stuff. Don’t make it worse by begging. You wilted once, but you got one last chance to go down standing. Don’t look at me that way, I got no choice, nothing personal, but you gotta die.

See, it’s all about choices. You change your name, try to become somebody different, but under the skin you’re still the same.

I mean, the feds and girls and guns, that’s all business stuff. Taking you out, that’s business. Listening to you beg, that’s business, too, sort of sad but, hey, you can’t change what’s under the skin.

It bugs me, you changing your name like that. Shows a lack of constitution.

Me, I stick with “Mikey.” There’s a billion Mikeys in Brooklyn, and I’m one of them. No better, no worse. That’s just part of my constitution.

The least you can do is take your name back. I’ll make it clean, one through the heart, the head, whatever you want. But you ought to do things right and go out under the name you was born with. What about it?