Fade (32 page)

“Just taking a rest,” he said.

“You should take some time off, Ozzie,” she suggested. “Go into the town and buy some ice cream. All work and no play is not good for you….” And she touched him on the shoulder.

He had to weigh carefully everything that Sister Anunciata said now, had to listen to her words and then decide whether she was saying one thing and meaning another.

“Now you finish the mopping and go along,” she said, squeezing his shoulder again, and he wondered if she was giving him a message that way, maybe a message that the voice could not hear.

“Yes, Sister,” he said, resuming his chore with the mop as she puttered away, her feet invisible in the long folds of her skirt skimming along the corridor.

He finished the floor and hung up the mop and changed his clothes in the small room near the kitchen.

And what about the old man?

What about the old man?

He knows too much
…

Ah, but he liked the old man, did not
like
him exactly but liked to have him around. To cuff and tease. Once in the alley downtown, he saw a cat playing with a mouse, cuffing the mouse, the mouse trapped in a corner, toying with the mouse with its paw, until suddenly the cat pounced. The old man was his mouse. He toyed with the old man the way that cat toyed with the mouse. But the old man was also useful. The old man had told him about the stranger, staggered all the way out here to the convent early in the morning, suffering a terrible hangover, shaking all over the place, his tongue hanging out like a piece of old leather.

“A stranger asking questions,” the old man said.

“What kind of questions?” Suspicious. How much did the old man tell the stranger?

The old man looked uncertain. Then his eyes got crafty. Ozzie saw that the old man was deciding how much to tell, how much that was the truth and how much that was a pack of lies.

“Questions about the town,” the old man said. “He's a writer. From Massachusetts. Going to write about the old resorts. But then he started with the questions.” Scratching his dirty, bristled face with a black fingernail. “About somebody who was thirteen. Somebody thirteen who has strange powers.” The old man looked triumphant. “Right away, Ozzie boy, I knew he meant you. And that's when I got very very careful, using the old noggin. He bought me booze and figured he'd get me talking that way, but …”

Ozzie hit him on the jaw. “You drank his booze?”

“Yes. But I didn't tell him anything.” Staggering back, looking awful, scared now, too, and rubbing his jaw where a scarlet spot had appeared.

“Yes, you did.” Hitting him again, a bruiser to the cheek, avoiding the nose, not wanting blood to flow here on the veranda of the convent where Sister Anunciata might stick her face out to see what was going on.

“No, Ozzie,” the old man said, spittle in the corners of his mouth and his chin loose on the bottom of his face like it might drop off and clatter to the floor. “I let him ask the questions and drank the booze and fell asleep. Honest. But I knew he was looking for you. …”

“You told him about me,” Ozzie said, not wanting to hit him anymore because he looked so pathetic.

“Bit my tongue,” the old man said, doing a kind of dance on the porch, sticking out his tongue, and Ozzie saw the blood on it.

“What did you tell him about me?”

“Nothing, nothing,” the old man said, whining now, loud, loud enough for the nuns busy in the kitchen to hear. “Would I come out here to warn you if I did something wrong?”

He decided to trust the old man. He had to remember that the old man did, after all, come all the way out here in his thirst and his hangover to warn him about the stranger.

He gave the old man orders. “Don't talk to the stranger but follow him. Keep out of his way but find out where he goes and who he talks to. And don't, for Christ's sake, take any booze from him, don't let him buy you any booze. I'll give you booze, I'll give you money for the booze.” Which Ozzie did, taking a couple of dollars from his secret place.

“I'll be downtown later,” Ozzie said.

On the street in the heat of the August afternoon and the dust being kicked up by the big sweeper from the town department, Ozzie looked for the stranger. Gone, unseen, he stalked the streets. Did not see the old man. Saw a lot of people on the streets but not the stranger. Looking high and low, he covered the whole town. He stood outside the Glen-wood for a while but nobody entered or left. He stole inside, checked the lobby and lingered there, but nobody came or went.

He finally spotted the stranger at four o'clock, saw him crossing the street in front of Dempsey's, head tilted to one side as if listening to something in the air—music, voices,
something
— nobody else could hear. How did he know this was his stranger? He knew, he knew.

The stranger was not tall and not short, not fat and not thin. Squinting, Ozzie studied his face. A face not handsome and not ugly. But something familiar about him. Where had he seen that face before? In his dreams, maybe? And suddenly, like lightning striking a tree and splitting it in two, the knowledge of the stranger's identity struck his brain and it seemed to crack his head in half, the pain so intense, Ozzie gasped aloud.

And the stranger was not a stranger anymore.

Ozzie knew who he was.

I could tell he was there. That vibrancy in the air again, that distant note like music out of tune, discordant, jangled. His presence, nearby, not quite certain where, across the street somewhere. But there, no doubt at all.

All day long I had awaited his arrival, had kept myself alert for him to make himself known. I could not account for this anticipation of mine. It was possible that the old man had warned him and the fader was looking for me. I had not seen the old man during my travels that day. I had not seen any thirteen-year-old boy, either, who might have been Oz-zie Slater. I realized that subconsciously I had a mental picture of him. Rose's son with her dark loveliness echoing somehow in him, in his eyes, perhaps. Despite what the old man had said, the boy was my nephew, my blood running in his veins. Before he was the monster the old man had described, he was Rose's son. And a fader, probably against his will, like myself, like Adelard. The boy who had ravaged this town was perhaps a victim of the fade, performing acts he would not otherwise contemplate.

I ate another meal at the Ramsey Diner and was returning to my hotel room when I was halted in my tracks by the certain knowledge that Ozzie Slater was nearby, his presence blazing in the air.

My eyes were drawn across the street. People walking lazily along on the wooden sidewalks. A clerk washing the window at the liquor store. All seemed normal. Yet I knew he was here, somewhere close by. Watching me. His eyes upon me.

Then I saw him. A hint of him, that is. In the full sunlight near an alley across the street, next to the five-and-ten, I saw the vague outline of a figure.

I waved at the dim figure, then beckoned with my hand: Come here, across the street, follow me. As I waved, the figure disappeared and I felt ridiculous, beckoning to empty air. Had my eyes deceived me and made me see what I wanted to see?

After waiting a few minutes, I stepped into the dismal lobby, deserted as usual, and waited there in the silence, waited for a door to open, for footsteps to follow.

A few minutes passed. Nothing. The lobby with its cracked tile floor echoed no footsteps. I went to the doorway, looked out through the dirty window, saw nothing unusual.

As I walked across the lobby, there was a rush of footsteps behind me. Turning, I reeled from a blow to my face, staggered backward as much from surprise as from the blow itself. My cheek stung with pain. I lifted my hands to defend myself and was staggered by another blow, this time to my shoulder. I fell back against the wall, gasping, and felt the overpowering presence of him there, close to me. I heard a chuckle, low and gurgling, and footsteps moving away.

“Wait,” I cried. “Don't go.” Desperate to detain him, I called: “Let me help you….”

The footsteps stopped, then came closer.

His voice came eerily out of nowhere.

“How can you help me?” Contempt in the voice, a snarl.

I was desperate to say the right thing and yet did not know what to say. And then decided on the truth, directness, not willing to gamble, to take chances.

“Because I'm like you….”

And waited.

“Nobody's like me….”

The voice, harsh and bitter, roared in my ears. And I felt his breath on my face.

“I am like you. I can do what you do—fade.” Instantly, I knew
that fade
was my word, Adelard's word, a word that was probably unfamiliar to him. I quickly amended it. “Disappear. Make myself invisible. Like you …”

Silence again. Deep and stunning. Then:

“Who are you?” From the other side of the lobby.

“My name is Paul Moreaux. I'm a writer. I come from Massachusetts. A small town, like Ramsey, named Monument.” I spoke urgently, not wanting to lose him, needing to keep his attention. “This thing, being invisible, I call it the fade. What do you call it?” Playing for time, hoping to get him talking.

“Gone, unseen,” he said, a sudden lilt in his voice, as if he were singing the words. “That's what I call it. Disappeared.” The voice of a boy, bright and interested.

“What we call it doesn't matter. But it's something we share, you and me. In our blood. It makes us the same….”

“If you share it, then do it.”

“What?”

“Do it.”

His voice like the snapping of a whip, a command that could not be ignored. But I could not possibly fade. I had vows to maintain. From years ago. From the time Bernard had died. Too many terrible things happened when I faded.

“Show me.” The voice again, challenging, determined, evidently sensing my hesitancy. “Make yourself disappear. If you're telling me the truth.”

I saw the trap I had sprung on myself.

And knew that I had to play for time, stall him, keep him here.

“I can't do it that easily,” I said. “I need a bit of time….”

“How much time?”

“How long does it take
you
to disappear?”

“Like this,” he said. And I heard the snap of his fingers, a bit close to me, as if he had advanced a foot or two.

“Doesn't it hurt?” I asked.

A long pause and I waited, wondered whether my face was betraying me, whether he could read in my eyes the ploy I was using to stall him.

“It comes fast and goes fast—you get used to it,” he said.

“It feels like dying,” I said. “My breath goes away and then the pain comes.” Keeping my voice conversational. Realizing that perhaps he wanted to talk about his strange power, the way I had wanted to talk to my uncle Adelard. “Then there's the cold.”

Silence. Prolonged this time.

“Are you still here?” I asked. Dust motes danced in the air as sunlight slanted into the room, diluted by the dirty window. My shirt felt damp on my back, my armpits wet. I sensed that he was still here, but the absence of a response was ominous.

A blow took me by surprise again. This time to my jaw, snapping my head back. “Why did you do that?” I asked. “I'm trying to help …”

The sense of his nearness was powerful. I knew he was only a foot or two away. In the silence of the lobby, his breath was audible. Quick short breaths. Was he nervous, fearful?

“Listen,” I said. “I'm not just a writer from Massachusetts. I'm more than that. I'm—”

Another blow, to my cheek.

“I know who you are,” he said, his voice harsh and bitter. “That's why I should kill you …”

The outside door opened and I turned to see a gray-haired woman clutching a grocery bag to her chest enter the lobby, letting the door slam behind her.

Movements in the air nearby, scatterings, the patter of feet receding across the floor. His presence no longer there. An emptiness in the air, a sense of loss. He was gone.

You should have killed him. There. On the spot.

I know.

You had your chance and you blew it.

I had to find out more about him.

He was bluffing. He can ‘t do it, be gone and unseen.

The old lady came in. He might have done it.

He was trying to trick you.

Maybe he wasn't.

Maybe he was.

And anyway—

Anyway what?

He's my Pa. My real Pa. I killed the fraud and the fake who beat me up, who beat up my Ma too. But this one's my real Pa. I wanted to see him for a minute or two. Talk to him a bit.

He left you behind. Deserted you. Didn ‘t care enough about you to be a Pa to you.

Why is he back, then? He said he wants to help me. He says he's like me.

Says, says. He says. But did he do what you asked? No. He's a fake. He wants to use you, that's why he's back.

How can he use me?

Because he knows. About the power. What you can do about it. Once you leave this place and go into the world. All the big cities. You can come and go without being seen. Think what you can do without being seen. He knows this. That's why he came. That's why you have to kill him.

Ozzie ran. Ran from the voice. Ran blindly through the streets, not caring whether his footsteps could be heard or the breeze of his passing felt by people coming and going. Ran until his lungs burned and his legs sang with pain. The bright sun hurt his eyes. He wiped his nose he could not see with his sleeve he could not see. He slumped to the ground, rested awhile.

Later, he patrolled the streets and the stores, looking for the old man, wondering if he had more to tell him about the stranger. Again and again, he checked out the old man's hiding places—the gazebo on the common, the alley, the empty crates behind the Ramsey Diner. No old man. Where the hell was he?

He found him at nightfall.

Emerging from the doorway of the Glenwood, reeling a bit, drunk, of course, looking foolishly around as he always did when gone on the drink and the booze, a silly look on his face.

No doubt the old man had been visiting the stranger who was his Pa, that Pa who had deserted him all those years ago. The stranger had given more booze to the old man to learn all he could about his friend, Ozzie Slater.