The Satyr's Head: Tales of Terror (8 page)

Winnie enjoyed the good things of life, as indeed I do, but that which she liked best of all was when I used to take her out in grandma’s old wheelchair which had lain in the cellar for thirty years or more.

I used to take her shopping in Clapham junction and lots of people used to stare quite rudely so I bought Winnie a pretty hat with a black veil and I used to wrap her up warmly in a big check blanket and we would go for strolls around Arding and Hobbs looking in the babywear department, the sad thing being that Winnie could never have children and I know it must have hurt her deeply looking at all those nappies and shawls and bouncing baby swings. I should never have taken her really.

Yes Winnie and
me were happy, but people are so vindictive. So evil and jealous. People just can’t leave well alone. Some people just don’t like to see other people happy. Just don’t. And it’s people that’s brought us to this present unhappy predicament.

I had a slight accident, you see, just outside my front garden gate. I was pushing Winnie home after an outing to the ponds on the Common where we’d had a lovely afternoon feeding the duckies and enjoying the sunshine, when suddenly, just as I was turning into the garden, the offside wheel of Winnie’s wheelchair caught a large stone. I couldn’t control the chair and it tipped sideways and poor Winnie was hurled to the pavement.

As fate would have it, two old crows, one of whom I recognized as Mrs. Flately, a shrew from further down the road, the other being Mrs. O’Dell, her nosey next door neighbour, came passing by. Well the screams they uttered must have pierced the very roof of Heaven and sent the Devil in Hell scurrying for cover. They dropped their bags of shopping and raced away, arms flailing, feet thudding as I, muttering how sorry I was, picked up the odds and ends which had dropped from my dear Winnie, including an eye which had rolled to the gutter and a leg which was being sniffed at by a mangy dog.

Hastily I bundled Winnie into the chair, not waiting to fix her together properly, and I hurried inside, bolting the door.

There were police in my front garden and people outside my front gate.
Ugly people. A mob. Screaming obscenities. Throwing stones and bottles and the so-called guardians of the law hardly deigning to stop them. My God, I don’t know what this country’s coming to. There’s just no freedom or privacy of the individual anymore.

I watched from the attic window, peering down at that screaming mass of boorish louts and uncouth women. They were shouting.
Yelling. Filthily swearing.

‘Get the murdering bastard!’ yelled one.

‘String ’im up!’

‘Burn the ghoul!’

Then one of them spotted me. ‘There he is. Get ’im!’ And the police collapsed under the mastodon-like power of the crowd. And they all surged forward smashing at my house with bricks and sticks and lumps of iron. I escaped over the rooftops, hopping like some poor squirrel pursued by wolves. Through a window and down a drainpipe and then I was running towards the tower blocks of the new council estate.

They’ve put Winnie in a black van now and locked the doors. She’ll be frightened in there. It must be dark. I wonder why Lizzie went and left me like she did. Lizzie! LIIII… ZZZZZIIE!

It’s like being a sparrow up here. A warm, plump little sparrow perched on a ledge. Or an eagle.

They’re marching down the street now.
Thousands of evil people. They mean me harm. Those Lilliputians.

I don’t know whether to jump.

I don’t know.

A
T THE TIME I was a cub reporter on the local
Star Daily
, a
morning paper. Unless something “big” was still breaking, I’d usually leave the editorial rooms shortly before midnight. I drifted into a regular routine; six nights out of seven I’d stop in at Casserman’s Cafe and drink beer until the place closed at one. A few other newspapermen would stop in; we’d talk and unbend for an hour before going home to bed.

Casserman’s was a quiet place. I suppose it was like a thousand other bars. I can’t remember a single outstanding or remarkable thing about it unless it might be the autographed, framed photograph of Jack Dempsey prominently displayed over the cash register. But on second thought I guess at least several hundred other bars had framed autographed photographs of Jack Dempsey.

Casserman was friendly but not ebullient. If you felt like talking, he’d lend a listening ear. If you didn’t want to talk, he’d respect your silence. He kept the place reasonably clean and he wouldn’t tolerate real rowdiness. It was just a pleasantly drab little refuge to relax in about midnight.

Around this time of night, one of the fixtures of the place was a runty-looking guy whom Casserman addressed as Fred. He resembled a disbarred jockey or a down-at-heels tout, pale-faced, shifty-eyed and always taciturn. He’d just sit hunched up over a beer and never say a word, but his eyes couldn’t stay put.

After awhile
we paid no more attention to him than we did to the photograph of Jack Dempsey. His eyes would flick around the place and sometimes sort of accidentally meet your own, but there was never any challenge in them. They seemed vacant, incurious, oddly cold, and they slid away without revealing anything. The pale, wedge-shaped face never showed any expression.

Casserman told us once that he thought his silent customer had something to do with horse racing and “different sports events”, but be was vague about it and none of us were interested enough to make any further inquiries.

The months and finally several years passed. I got a city-room promotion and a raise in pay. Several of my reporter friends left and several others took their places. And almost every night, about twelve, I went to Casserman’s and drank beer. And every night when I went there, Fred, the runty little guy with the pale wedge of a face, sat at the end of the bar and silently sipped his beer. His eyes roved around as always, restless but empty looking. Sometimes I’d give him a short nod when I first went in but I never could figure out whether or not he gave a half nod in reply. If he did, it was scarcely perceptible. I never saw him talking to anyone except Casserman and even then only a few perfunctory words were exchanged.

As time went on, the funny little runt seemed to get whiter and smaller and more silent—if that was possible. He seemed to be shrinking. I’d never paid any attention to his clothes, but I finally noticed one evening how really seedy they had become. All this registered in a sort of subconscious way. I had no real interest in the character. Several times during the evening you’d catch his eyes sliding away, but they affected me no more than the blinking neon sign across the street.

More time passed. Six months. Eight months. I can’t remember precisely. I went to Casserman’s as usual and drank beer and as always the runt sat at the far end of the bar, pale and still and shrunken-looking. He just seemed to be fading away.

One evening, toward the end, I caught his eyes sliding away and, just momentarily, something about his expression held my attention. Had I read a kind of fleeting but desperate appeal in those shifty eyes, or had I only imagined it? I was troubled, briefly, and then one of my cronies came in and we started to talk and I forgot all about the runt.

From here on, it’s tough. The time sequence and the exact sequence of minor events.

One evening, I remember, Casserman leaned across the bar and shook his head. ‘Fred’s lookin’ bad.
Real bad. And not touchin’ his beer.’

I glanced toward the end of the bar. Fred sat there as usual and, to be truthful, he looked about the same to me. No worse than usual, that is. What I do remember is that the light at the far end of the bar appeared to be a bit dimmer than it ordinarily was. I couldn’t seem to get a sharp clear image of Fred. But the room was pretty smoky at the time and I thought nothing of it. I made some reply to Casserman, glanced up to see if a bulb had burned out—apparently none had—and then turned toward the door as my friend, Henry Kalk, the rewrite man, came in.

Two or three nights later Casserman leaned over and shook his head again. ‘I guess Fred’s gettin’ worse.’

I looked toward the end of the bar. Fred was no longer there. I was startled; the little runt almost never left till closing time.

‘I didn’t see him leave,’ I said rather pointlessly.

Casserman’s big shoulders bunched.
‘Left without touchin’ his beer.’ A wry grin turned the corners of his mouth. ‘And didn’t leave any dime either!’

For a few minutes, before the rest of the gang came in, I thought about Fred. He was obviously sick and something should be done. I resolved to ask about him somewhere. Then the city room slaves burst in and I’m afraid I forgot all about it as usual.

But the next night, when I returned to my midnight refuge, I did recall Casserman’s comment. I looked toward the end of the bar and there sat Fred as usual, still and white. He glanced up and then quickly looked away and I was rather shocked at his appearance. His face seemed terribly drawn and sunken; he appeared years older than he had a few weeks before. I got the impression that he was seriously ill and just going ahead on will power alone.

I caught Casserman’s attention later. ‘He ought to be in the hospital,’ I said.

Casserman nodded uneasily. ‘Yeah. But what can you do? The guy just sits there and won’t talk. Just sits and don’t even drink his beer anymore.’ He shrugged with an uncomfortable air. ‘It gives me the jitters.’

I don’t know what prompted me to ask the question, but I did. Lowering my voice, I leaned across the bar. ‘Is he leaving his dime?’

Casserman shook his head. ‘Just forgets, I guess. Hell, I don’t care much about
that.
He’s been comin’ here for years. It’s only that he’s beginning to get on me nerves a bit.’

Again, the exact sequence of time and events eludes me. But I have the impression that the next evening Fred sat at the far end of the bar as usual. The place was extra busy and I didn’t get to talk to Casserman.

I had a late, rush assignment the following night and didn’t make it to Casserman’s. But the subsequent night I strolled in at the regular time and there sat the runt, pale, silent and really sick looking. His eyes met mine and I nodded. This time, surprisingly, his return nod was actually perceptible. His eyes even held for a few moments and, again, I fancied that I read a mute but desperate and mounting appeal in them.

I was almost impelled to walk to the end of the bar and speak to him, but I didn’t. He looked away at the last moment, I hesitated, and the impulse passed. I sat down at my usual place.

A few minutes later, when the tavern had begun to fill up, Casserman leaned across the bar. ‘Still not touched his beer. Holy Jesus! He looks like a walkin’ corpse!’

‘We ought to do something,’ I said.

Casserman shrugged unhappily. ‘He don’t talk anymore, don’t say a word. Maybe before closin’ time, you could try to get somethin’ out of him?’

I hesitated.
‘Yeah. I’ll see.’

Although I had been impelled to speak to the runt only a few minutes previously, I now found that my desire to do so had ebbed away. I’m not sure why.
Pure selfishness maybe. I suppose I just didn’t want to disturb the pleasant aura of late evening which alcohol, companions and a familiar refuge combined to create. Beyond that, I think I felt convinced that the little runt would probably repel my attempts at solicitude with a wall of silence and the whole episode would turn out to be both awkward and embarrassing. In any event, I did nothing.

I suppose my decision to do nothing was the climax. In a sense the business about Fred ended right there, that same evening, no more than a half hour later. I’ll try to describe it as I recall it
and you can accept or reject it as you see fit.

I can’t remember the exact time, right to the minute, but it must have been approximately quarter to one, I recollect, clearly, that for some reason I glanced up, toward the end of the bar. Fred was looking at me. His eyes lingered and once more I read a curious, despairing appeal in them. It was so intense and so apparent that it fixed my attention.

I was looking back, still undecided what I should
do, when the little runt finally dropped his eyes. A moment later he got up and moved into the men’s room, at the rear of the building.

I hesitated for a minute and then acted on impulse. Perhaps, I must have reasoned, if I could speak to the poor little guy in private, he might be willing to talk. Maybe Casserman and I could help him somehow
.
Get him into a hospital or at least to a doctor.

I got up and walked into the men’s room. It was empty.

Let me emphasise two things. First, that I followed the runt into the men’s room no more than two minutes after he entered it—actually, I think it was just over a minute. If, in that brief time, he had emerged from the room, lie would have had to open the door, cross my field of vision—I sat staring at the door—and walk the entire length of the bar before leaving by the street entrance. Second, there was absolutely no way out of the men’s room except by the single door. There was a small window set in the rear wall, but some years previously someone had smashed through that window and rifled the cash register
.
Shortly after, Casserman had heavy steel bars set into the window frame. In addition, a thick wire-mesh screen had been placed over the entire window, bars and all, from
the outside. Only an insect or a mouse could have gotten through that window without tearing off the wire screen and cutting through at least two or three of the steel bars.

There was a rear door, but it was in the opposite corner of the building, behind the bar. It was bolted and locked and Casserman carried the key. I don’t quite know how Casserman passed the fire marshal’s annual inspection, but the fact remains it would have been impossible for the runt to leave by that exit unless he went behind the bar and got the key from Casserman—which he did not do.

I stood in that dingy men’s room and looked around. The stall doors were attached by springs and they were all wide open. To keep them closed they had to be locked. From the inside. There was no place else in that room where anyone could stand, sit or crouch without being seen.

I walked to the barred window at the rear of the room and gazed out. The bars were in place, the wire screen intact, the window closed and locked.

Only a few yards behind Casserman’s place, a series of railroad tracks came together and ran off toward a sprawl of waterfront salt flats. As I stood at the window, frowning in bewilderment, I looked down those empty tracks and for a fleeting second I thought that I saw someone walking along them. I had the odd impression that although this figure was walking slowly, it was, paradoxically, receding
rapidly into the distance. Then I decided that my eyes were deceiving me, that a blur of shadows in the moonlight was all that I had actually seen.

As I lingered at the window, looking down
that shiny, dwindling road of steel track and wooden ties, a sense of the most indescribable desolation overcame me. I don’t possess the words to convey it. A sudden feeling of heart-stopping, overwhelming loneliness washed through me. It was not a mere physical sense of loneliness; it was a loneliness of the psyche, of the spirit, an abrupt and unaccountable conviction that I was alone and isolated from all humanity, that I was sinking, soul-hungry and desperate, into an awful, inconceivable gulf of immense outer darkness, a universe of unutterable cold, unrelieved and never-ending.

I shuddered and turned away from the window. A minute later I was back at the bar and Casserman came over.

‘You see him?’ he asked.

I took a long
drink and grinned at him rather foolishly. I suppose it was some kind of reaction from the experience I’d just had. ‘How could I see him?’ I replied. ‘He went into the men’s room and disappeared!’

Casserman scowled at me. ‘I was up near the front; I didn’t see him go out.’

I drained my glass and shoved it across the bar. ‘Hell,
one
of us needs glasses then!’

I left late, a bit the worse for wear and went home. I didn’t sleep well.

The next night when I stopped in at Casserman’s, Fred wasn’t there. His place at the end of the bar was empty.

When he got a free minute, Casserman came over. ‘I’m worried about that little runt.
Probably lyin’ sick in some flea-bag flophouse.’

I sipped my beer. ‘Can you get his address?’

Casserman scratched his head. ‘Maybe. Rick Platz used to know all that race-track bunch. Maybe I’ll call him tomorrow. No use tonight.’

‘By the way,’ I said, ‘do you know the runt’s name—I mean, besides ‘Fred?’