The Complete Short Fiction of Charles L. Grant, Volume IV: The Black Carousel (15 page)

A cat whimpered behind a hedge.

He wasted ten minutes trying to find it.

By the time he reached home, blood from the
fresh meat began seeping through the bottom of the brown paper
bag.

At six o’clock the telephone rang.

“You’ve got to be kidding,” he said, giving the
living room window his best martyr’s expression.

“There’s nothing I can do about it, dear, I’m
sorry.”

“But Mom, that means they may not be here until
midnight.”

His irritation pricked the back of his neck when
she reminded him, too calmly for him to miss her own agitation,
that Wendall’s car breaking down wasn’t her fault, don’t pout over
things you can’t do anything about.

Which was, he thought after he replaced the
receiver, the whole problem with the world. He stomped into the
kitchen and sneered at it. Control. Give him a little control, just
once, and things would soon change around here, by Christ. Drake
Saxton, Temporary King of the Whole Goddamn World.

Damn.

He watched the early news, the national and
world news, stood up from the couch every time he heard a car turn
into the street; he stood on the porch and watched Mrs. Loodeck
water her plants, billowing floral bathrobe wrapped around a body
almost as wide as her front door; Mr. Tarman oiled his glider, the
way he did every week, then wiped it down with a chamois; the sun
dropped behind the houses across the street, blanking their faces;
a pair of terriers trotted up toward the graveyard, tails high,
tongues hanging brightly; the sky bled away its light slowly and
the breeze finally died.

The television gave him game shows he couldn’t
bring himself to watch.

His mother called again, apologizing, she
wouldn’t be home for at least two or three more hours.

“You getting overtime?”

She laughed. “Grey hair, dear, just more grey
hair.”

He called Jill, for no other reason than he was
tired of pacing, tired of sitting, tired of trying to find things
to do. There was no control; it was driving him nuts.

“So,” he said after running the gauntlet of her
ever-suspicious father, “you busy tonight?”

“Of course I am,” she said. “It’s summer, you
idiot. I’ve got stuff going every night and twice on
Saturdays.”

“You want to go to the Travelers?”

“Sure, what time?”

He checked his watch and closed one eye.
“Eight-thirty, half an hour. I can’t stay very late, though.”

“How come?”

“Company coming.”

“So why are you leaving?”

He didn’t know; he stayed silent.

“No problem. Where?”

“Meet you at the gate?” He’d been to her house
once, and that had been enough. Mr. Nowell had been worse than Aunt
Sheri, quizzing him on everything except his weight and
birthstone.

She giggled. “Okay. Dutch?”

He feigned indignance. “I am perfectly capable
of arranging entrance payment for both of us, Miss Nowell, thank
you very much.”

“Wow, is that reporter talk?”

“Later,” he said, and hung up, looked down at
his feet and slapped his forehead. “So what the hell made you do a
dumbass stupid thing like that, Saxton? You’re asking for trouble,
you know. Jesus, you’re a jerk.”

He went upstairs to change, checkered shirt and
jeans, and to arrange the mess of undistinguished brown hair he’d
obviously gotten from his father.

“Suppose,” he said to the bathroom mirror, “Mom
gets home before you do? She will, you know. You’ll be in deep
shit.”

His hair refused to obey, and he finally let it
flop over his ears, over his brow, as usual. Next year he was
getting a crew cut and the hell with Oxrun fashion.

“Suppose,” he said to the sink as he leaned over
the counter, writing a note to explain where he was, when he’d be
home, but not why he had gone, “Uncle Wendall gets here first and
you’re not here? Then what? Mom comes home, they’re all sitting
around the porch with their bags on the lawn, she’ll hunt you down
and murder you.”

He almost changed his mind.

It wouldn’t be fair to let her face them
alone.

Darling;
Aunt Sheri would say, that
goddamn finger pressed against her cheek the way it always did when
she looked at something that disturbed her by its very existence,
it’s such a shame you have to work so late just to make ends
meet. Isn’t it, Wendall. Isn’t it a shame? I don’t mean to pry,
dear, but maybe it’s time Drake took a job instead of all those
extra classes. Don’t you think so, Chuck? Don’t you think Drake
could sacrifice just a little bit to help his mother out?

Of course, they hadn’t been around when his
father didn’t come home. They called once a month, they scattered
blame like it was corn seed, but aside from a fifty-dollar check
that first Christmas, no one had given them a hand but
themselves.

He made sure he had his house key and wallet,
turned on the outside light, and locked the door behind him.

The street was already dark.

Again, all the lights were out.

He looked up at the amber bulb, scowled, flicked
the globe with his thumb twice before it came on, and took a deep
breath.

Go?

You’re already there, he answered, and left.

She was two inches taller, even in her flats,
her white shirt more snug than his, her white shorts cut high and
loose, her hair against her tan a deep golden brown. A round face,
a pug nose, a thin scar that ran from the corner of her right eye
almost to her ear, making that eye seem almost slanted. She played
basketball, swam, hiked in the White Mountains, and was reputed to
have beaten up every boy on her block every year until she reached
high school.

When she took his hand, her grip was gentle.

They didn’t say anything beyond grins for
hi.
Drake was somewhat astonished that she’d shown up at
all, and didn’t want to press his luck scaring her off with some
brilliantly stupid remark.

It didn’t matter.

For most of the first half hour she did all the
talking for them, telling him about the supreme bust her cousin’s
party was, how she’d left after five minutes to go to a movie that
wasn’t so hot either, that she was, really, no shit, sorry she’d
made him go and then left without even seeing him.

While he told her about Uncle Wendall and the
rest of the Firths, she dragged him to a bunting-draped stand to
show him how to shoot spinning targets, marching ducks, twirling
bears, and a scarecrow that had five crows perched on each straw
arm. He cheered her on, carried the panda she won, and let her rush
him down a lane to a baseball toss, dropping nine in a row into a
canted, narrow-mouthed garbage can. He carried the giant canary and
followed her to a snack concession where she treated him to spicy
hot dogs and diet soda, never once slowing down long enough for him
to tell her about the family about to invade the Saxton
fortress.

She kissed his cheek and said she thought no
offense but his relatives sounded like class-A assholes.

She dunked a clown in a water tank by using a
pool ball to hit a bull’s-eye no larger than his palm.

She kissed his cheek when he gave the panda to a
little girl who couldn’t seem to stop crying.

They reached the oval close to ten, and he
balked when she headed straight for the Octopus.

“No.”

“Why not, Drake?” She leaned close; he smelled
heat and sugar.

“I don’t like that thing, that’s all.”

“Oh, come on, it won’t kill you.”

Doubtfully, he watched the round-bottom cars
swing and spin up into the shadows above the carnival light, saw
the faces desperate to have fun, heard the obligatory shrieks. He
shook his head again.

“Drake,” she said, sternly as she smiled, “it’s
okay, really. Millions of people ride it every night.” Close again.
“You can sit in my lap.” Her arm draped across his shoulders. She
licked her lips and whispered, “I’ll let you feel me up a little.”
Waggled her eyebrows. Kissed his cheek.

And will you wipe my mouth when I dribble ice
cream, Mommy? he thought, suddenly annoyed.

“The carousel,” he said, pulling her toward the
back.

“Oh Jesus, wimp city.”

“My choice for a change,” he said as lightly as
he could. “Give the wimp a break, okay?”

He could see it, then — hurt, is he joking,
hurt, a shade of anger, finally deciding Drake doesn’t hurt people
so why the hell not.

“And who,” she wanted to know as they joined the
short line, “ever heard of a black merry-go-round? It’s almost
obscene, don’t you think?”

He loved it.

So black, so deeply and unrelentingly black, the
strings of lights ranged along its circus-top roof seemed to float
above it, the fall of light beneath the canopy soft enough to
touch. The animals perfectly carved, gaily painted, even the bench
seats in emerald and gold seemed alive somehow.

“I’ll bet there isn’t even a brass ring or
anything,” she complained when they finally reached the platform
and the carousel slowed, the music slowed.

“Sue me,” he told her, poking her sharply with a
thumb.

“Damn right.”

On then, struggling through the red-faced kids
streaming off, walking counterclockwise around the base until she
found a mustang with a purple mane for her, and a rearing stag with
ruby horns for him. Her expression dared him to fault her; he
kissed her cheek mockingly and climbed aboard.

“You know,” she said as the mustang began to
rise, the music began to play, “you could write about this for the
paper.”

“Why? It’s just a carnival.”

She shook her head, held on to the brass pole
with one hand and leaned precariously over. “I mean, you could do
the history of these things, y’know? What they mean to outlying
places like the Station, stuff like that.”

Pieces of him swept by on his left, the mirrors
taking him, absorbing him, bringing him back for more.

“Boring.”

“Hey,” she said, straightening so abruptly he
thought at first she was angry, “if you’re going to be a reporter,
Saxton, you’ve got to get yourself a little imagination, right? I
mean, you going to write about proms and professors and pay hikes
all your life?”

He couldn’t answer.

She obviously didn’t expect one.

His hands on the pole, sliding up, sliding down,
while he thought about wishing wells and magic lamps and the music
that sounded like tin and silver, pans and bells, while the wind
pushed the hair from his eyes and rippled his shirt and opened his
mouth so he could gulp it in like water, while he rode the stag and
wanted to ride it all night, away from the carousel, away from the
Station and into the hills where the trees would hide him and the
hunters couldn’t find him and the weather would be the only thing
that would tell him where to go;

while he watched the other riders always ahead,
always behind, never looking back, always looking in the mirrors,
while those on the ground moved away from his speed, from his
antlers, from his hooves, not quite cheering, not quite screaming,
not quite afraid and too afraid to run, while the music, tin and
silver, rendered him deaf to everything but the cry of a young cat
trapped in the branches of a young tree in a town too old to be
anything but just there;

while the music slowed and the stag slowed and
his eyes watered until his forearms, first one, then the other,
wiped them dear.

“Jesus,” he whispered, and climbed down, stood
for a moment until his legs stopped trembling. “God.”

Jill didn’t seem to notice. “Octopus,” she
demanded, payment for, and he watched her climb into the
saucer-shaped car, watched the car lift, watched her blow him a
kiss before the speed kicked in and she had to hang on. Nothing to
see, then, and nothing to hear but the screams until it slowed,
gears and chains grinding, and she pantomimed a message:
I’m
going around again.
He felt like a jerk. People were probably
watching him watching her, nudging each other and smirking. He’s
down here, she’s up there, we all know who wears the pants in that
family.

He walked away, paused at several food stands
without buying a snack, exchanged smiles with a few people he knew,
although vaguely, and finally left the oval, back onto the midway
where he kept to one side and read the signs, listened to the
spiels, realized he’d left the canary somewhere behind, surrendered
to a sudden urge like the jerk of a string and entered a square
tent that smelled of sawdust and fresh paint.

It was empty.

It was dark.

But not so dark that he couldn’t see a woman
standing in the distance, a silhouette against lighter black.
Watching him. He knew she was watching him.

Cautiously, not sure how dangerous moving around
in here was, he walked toward her, frowning, head slightly forward
in an effort to see better, wondering if she was part of the show
or only another customer wondering the same as he.

She didn’t move.

His left hand reached out timidly, searching for
something to touch, grip, brush against, and found nothing.

She didn’t move.

A few moments later he collided with something
hard that whacked across his thighs, made him grunt, made him
snatch at it and realize it was a small folding chair with a thin
padded seat. Hanging on to the back, he glanced around, saw
nothing, no one else, and shrugged as he sat, intending to remain
for only a few seconds, until his senses were able to give him
bearings, better vision.

She didn’t move.

“Hello?” he said.

The light behind her, neither from above nor
below, brightened enough for him to see that she wore a ball gown,
strapless shoulders, hooped skirt with tiers of stiff ruffles, a
broad red ribbon that tied her hair behind her ears. Hands clasped
demurely at her waist. Powdered bosom pushed in, pushed up, barely
contained and not at all exciting.