The Axman Cometh (12 page)

He changes his grip on the handle of the heavy square package wrapped in peppermint-striped paper, the package he has been carrying since he left his car half a mile away in a location where it is not likely to attract attention for a couple of days. A car comes down the street, slowly, going in his direction. A dog barks at him from a porch. An old man in his undershirt sits rocking, listening to the radio. A couple of girls are sitting on the front bumper of an old Packard at the curb, gossiping in ecstatic whispers. They glance at him and the birthday present he is carrying and pay no more attention. The rock-and-roll band in the backyard of 298 West Homestead is pounding out a version of "
Tutti
Fruiti
" and he winces. A smoke-colored cat battles moths under a misty street light at the intersection of West Homestead
and—he
checks the name of the cross street on the white concrete pylon—Columbia Avenue.

He stands there for a few moments, looking down the long block, studying the homes. Fourteen in all. Architecturally it's a mixed neighborhood: one, two, even three- story houses, some set close to the street, some farther back on little terraces. There are turn-of-the-century frame houses with deep front and side porches, gambrels, turrets,
paladian
windows, a touch of stained glass, television aerials strapped to the chimneys;

California-style brick or stucco bungalows dating from the thirties; big boxy houses of no distinction. Most of these are three stories, with screened front porches and dormer windows all around. There isn't much to separate the houses: a couple of formal hedges along driveways, some post-and-wire fences that probably serve to train climbing roses or trumpet vine. The shade trees are mostly cottonwoods, although a few elm trees remain and look healthy. There's a black walnut or two, and plenty of mulberries: the sidewalks are darkly stained from their maturing fruit.

The smoke-toned cat gives up the moth game and looks at him, eyes picking up some glassy red from the lights of another car behind him. He starts walking again, slowly. The car, an old bottle-green Hudson, stops halfway down the block and a couple of elderly women help each other out: one needs two canes to get around. They have birthday presents with them. They go up a driveway between two houses, one of them saying, "I don't know how much of that I can
take,"
no doubt referring to the rock-and-roll band.

He pauses again, looking over the Hill house. One of the big boxy types, but there's no screen on the front porch, just some trellis with pale green vines growing on it on either side of the steps; from the sidewalk, looking up toward the house, which is elevated by perhaps six feet but not on a defined terrace, four front windows on the first floor are visible; but he can't tell much about the rooms inside. The front door, with a tall oval of clear glass in it, is standing half open. From the perspective of the sidewalk or the street no one can be seen unless he or she is standing directly in front of the door. The porch lighting is meager: a couple of yellow bug-repellant bulbs in small fixtures.

He likes all he has seen so far; he likes it very much.

Upstairs, over the porch roof, which is
slanted
to either side of the house, are five more windows, these with shades, and two dormer windows jutting from the roofline above those of the second story—they are the only windows in the house that are dark. Attic, he presumes, with a generous amount of space judging from the height of the roof. And there appears to be a full solidly constructed cellar, to be expected in this cyclone- conscious part of the country.

By now he can smell food, meat sizzling on an outdoor grill; and the band has temporarily called it quits. He hears the clear ringing of a cook's triangle, a couple of cheers, laughter, someone speaking, unintelligibly to him, into a microphone. There is an amplified, ear-splitting screech, groans, more laughter. He goes up the front walk, separated from the lawn on either side by saw-toothed diagonals of half-buried brick, and up the front steps to the porch. Now he can see through the screen door down the center hall to the back of the house—which, at this moment, with the burgers and hot dogs ready for consumption in the back yard beneath glowing pastel paper moons, appears to be totally empty. He sets down the heavy peppermint-striped package with red-and- white curlicues of ribbon on it and reaches for the screen-door handle. A couple of boys appear at the back of the hallway, jostling each other, making for the stairs at the front of the house, and he steps aside; but if they notice him they pay no attention.

"I'm first!"

"I'm
first!"

"Why don't you go do it in the yard?"

"Why don't you?"

They battle each other up the stairs for possession of the bathroom. When he can hear but not see them, he opens the screen door and walks inside with his surprise package. There will be people in and out all evening to use the toilet; and probably arrangements have been made with the neighbors as well. It doesn't matter. He needs only a few minutes.

He looks to his left, into a living room that has a trey ceiling, a fireplace with a raised-marble hearth and a Victorian mantel enameled white. There are no windows on the fireplace wall. To his right is the staircase with a center strip of shoddy plum-colored carpet. At the foot of the staircase are sliding walnut doors partly open; inside there is a small
lamplit
parlor with windows on the front and side, shades half-drawn and covered with lace curtains. He glances up the stairs; apparently both boys have gone into the bathroom and shut the door. He can't hear them. Good thick heavy doors in this house. But he doesn't like the glass in the front door. Maybe there will be a back stairway, the house appears to be large enough.

He goes down the hall, which is darkly
wainscotted
, also in walnut, and opens a door under the staircase. Closet, filled with winter coats, umbrellas, a couple of snow shovels: the pungency of wool, rubber boots, mothballs. Four more steps to a door directly in front of him, the hall doglegging right to the

kitchen. He opens the door. Darkness; a damp, strong whiff of cellar. No need to go down.

He shuts the door, walks into the kitchen. There is a rectangular breakfast table right in the middle of the scuffed linoleum floor. Yellow-and-white checkerboard oilcloth on the table with a lazy Susan. Six ladder-back chairs with cane bottoms around the table. Noisy refrigerator, the enamel badly chipped. Fat water-filled jars on top, each containing a potato that has produced vines in a
jungly
scatter. He hears the faint downfall of a flushed toilet, hears the boys coming and goes to the sink, runs water, washes his hard, capable hands: he can never get them too clean. The boys pass through the kitchen; he watches their reflections in the
semidark
glass of the windows over the sink. One of them can't hike his zipper all the way up.

Beyond the porch, which is screened, he can see much of a big backyard filled with people, picnic tables illuminated by Japanese lanterns strung between several trees. The smoky lighting is uneven, with depths to the yard as black as night should be. A temporary dance floor has been laid for the teenagers. There is a long buffet flanked by portable gas grills. The buffet consists of plain fare: platters heaped with buns, bowls of potato salad and relishes, half-gallon jars of mayonnaise and mustard, pitchers of drinks that sparkle in the light. He thinks he recognizes
Dabney
Hill but can't locate Shannon, even though he lingers in the kitchen for a longer time than is necessary, or wise.

Opposite the sink, a walk-in pantry, crammed with Ball jars that hold big globes of tomatoes, green- and butterbeans, cut squash, rhubarb. Next to the pantry is a door that sticks, but he perseveres and finally gets it open. The back staircase he has hoped for, obviously almost never used, judging from the gray dust on the risers.

He doesn't use this staircase, not wanting to leave footprints. Instead he picks up his heavy package and returns to the front of the house, takes the steps quickly to the second floor. A bathroom, four bedrooms. Four-poster bed in one of the front bedrooms, a sewing-machine alcove, photos on one wall beside a mirror-topped bureau: naval vessels, young sailors in dungarees showing off for the camera, others in battle dress at their stations and all business. A photo of an unidentified aircraft, perhaps Japanese, trailing smoke and inclined at a deep fatal angle toward the brilliant surface of a tropical sea. Another of a group of islands that are little more than barren
rockpiles
. A reunion photo: jowls, bellies, grins, highball glasses. The centerpiece, large as a magazine cover, is a copy of the famous photograph of the raising of the American flag on Iwo Jima's Mount
Suribachi
.

Shannon's room is next door, across the hall. Dozens of watercolors brighten the dour mauve wallpaper. She has done several pencil and charcoal studies of Elvis Presley, Ricky Nelson, Fabian. There is a portrait of a likeable-looking boy with batwing ears who might be her brother Chap. Various other teenagers, older relatives or neighbors are represented.

Hoary old stuffed animals tumble against each other at the foot of the bed on the frilly pink chenille spread. The bed is also strewn with articles of clothing, as if she couldn't make up her mind what to put on for Dab's birthday. Her vanity has the usual stuff from
Kresge's
cosmetics counter. The lipstick is uncapped. So is the nail polish. The styling brush with its gleaning of fine blonde hairs lies on the floor. Her frayed sneakers are under the vanity. So is a Cross-Your-Heart bra. There's a discarded box of tampons in the wicker wastebasket next to the vanity. Shannon is having her period. He digs deeper into the trash, past tissues that have blotted her lips, notepaper on which she has penned drafts of a birthday tribute to her father, and comes up with a used tampon wrapped in a Kleenex. Judging from the heavy flow, she is at the beginning, not the end, of her menses. The horror, the fascination, of women. His excitement is profound. He begins to sense the music. Nothing very definite yet: three notes, then a fourth. D, C-sharp—what else? Never mind, it will grow, the design will emerge.

Someone else has come up the stairs to use the bathroom. The man in Shannon's bedroom has a keen sense of smell, and he detects a cigar. Whoever the newcomer is, he doesn't bother to close the bathroom door all the way while he's peeing. After he's finished he stands in the hall outside the bathroom for a time, clearing his throat, blowing his nose, talking to himself in an undertone before trudging downstairs to rejoin the party.

The man in Shannon's room takes another slow look around, then goes down the hall to the other two bedrooms. Unmade bed, damp towels on the floor of one, a crudely crafted bookcase filled with trophies or mementoes: Little League, Pop Warner football, high-school basketball and football. The remainder of the shelf space is taken up by repair manuals for motorcycles, automobiles and trucks. There is a strong smell of cologne or after-shave in the room. His girlfriend in a sugary, blurred-focus studio portrait on his dresser. Short, curly,
erythristic
hair, long upswept eyelashes, full, parted lips. Allen Ray keeps his condoms (lubricated, reservoir tips) in a cigar box with his cufflinks, tie clasps, a lock of that red hair and a twenty-dollar Saint-Gaudens gold piece. The other bedroom is twice as messy. Stacks of 45-RPM records on a student desk, a half-eaten cupcake in its wrapper sitting on a windowsill, dirty laundry and a catcher's mitt on the seat of the only chair. A bent bicycle wheel and a hula hoop lean against one wall. The only photograph in the room is that of a golden retriever, muzzle thrust affectionately against the cheek of a grimacing, much younger Chap. Copies of
Mad
magazine; horror comic books. Also a paperback edition of
Moby Dick
and a New Standard Revised Version of the Bible, many scraps of paper serving as bookmarks. A report card beside the Bible that shows zero absences and straight A's for the school year. Chapman Hill is, or was, a seventh grader. Under the pillows of his bed is a battered, faded stuffed rabbit in calico overalls wrapped in a T-shirt. Both ears have been reattached clumsily with different-colored thread, a beginner's stitches.

The windows of Chap's room are open, the shades down to within six inches of the sill. He has a limited perspective on the party outside. There is a tentative swelling of voices, then all join in singing "Happy Birthday," the lead guitarist of the rock-and-roll band mercilessly twanging chords. The drummer comes in with a long roll at the end, and a final clashing of cymbals: ".. .
tooooo
youuuuuuu
!" Cheers.

"Speech! Speech!"

There is someone else in the hall outside Chap's bedroom. He cracks the door an inch and looks out. A youth with a ducktail wearing a Harley-Davidson T-shirt gestures to a girl in wheat jeans who stands on the riser just below the top of the stairs. She shakes her head, a little curl falling out of the stiffness of her beehive onto her forehead. He reaches for her, grasps her by the wrist, and pulls her into the bathroom with him. Locks the door.