NEAR DAWN; blue window, not yellow window as they crept through the gates of an old stable house, and ducked into what had once been a horse stall,
11. huddled around Maggie, the boys had a new round of cigarettes, while one crept alone to the manor.
Two cigarettes per man it took for the one to reappear from the house and jog back. He reached a hand out to her: Come on then.
He escorted her to the house, and at the door let her go.
He's here?
Another.
He clapped her on the arm.
Three floors of house above her. All the windows covered over.
She pulled the door open, and stepped in.
A LANTERN glowed above her at the turn in a stairwell. Low ceiling, and a pentagram of shut doors around that stairwell. The lantern was dull metal cupping the glass cylinder, and heavy for being so small. The first three steps she took beyond where the lantern had been left, and Maggie no longer wanted to go. She felt fear that was honest, was instinct that a thing waited above to hurt her.
She thought of that short adulthood prior to her father's sickness, when he would beg her to visit him at the highway bar that was his home. The slobs inside too busy with their own hiding to ask why a braggart who replied to drink requests in four languages, seen constantly writing in sharp little black notebooks -- why a proud licentiate was sweating into old age passing beers and sweeping crud. When she did visit him, walking into the too cold air conditioning, and the fecal smell of old drunks sitting too long, ran her up with dread; when she saw the ruddy ferret the father had turned into, (such a wiry little man he was), she felt fear for other people that had tangled with him. This was the dread she now felt walking up the stairs of the stable house.
SHE STEPPED to the second floor. Five more doors. Two left. Two right. One down the middle open, and lamplight inside. She could see part of a bed inside that center room, and as she walked that way she saw a person was in the bed. Lamplight made a cacao glow of the brown sheets. It was the largest man Maggie had ever seen. He watched her come to the doorway with pale eyes. He was an old man with hair and beard like thick white fur; strange to see a man so grand so old. He might have been seven feet tall -- and broad: the sheets, (they were several), could not cover him up; great dirty feet hung out under them, slung one over the other, and off the edge of the bed. He was an old giant.
He raised two fingers as a wave.
You're this Maggie? I had a daughter as pretty as you.
Yes. She said, and did not know what she meant after she said it.
I had a daughter. You had a father. And we're all brothers. I'm your brother.
His voice was high. Boyish. He was touching small flowers in his left hand, and still motioning to her with his right.
All brothers. Sisters. I wanted to see you before you go. Get a look at you.
Go?
To the tower.
Why am I going there?
Why? Why answer with a sigh? Nasty job.
Henny Newton. What job?
I don't know.
What's your name?
Oliver.
I don't believe you.
Fine. Henny's no junior officer. He's a senior motherfuck. Get with him, you'll see London, you'll see France --
And?
And what?
And I'll see his --
Dirty girl! I was meant to walk you up the tower, but I'm bedridden. I want to tell you a story that will be better protection to you than even me when I was young. Come and sit. Let me see you closer..
His eyes were filmy, and fixed so dispassionately upon the flowers in his hand that she knew she should not.
I don't think so. She said.
I was a man. Do you know? A man before men ruined the meaning of the word. While the word-coiners crawled, I walked. I strode. I had a daughter.
You said.
I had a daughter, and Henny Newton loved her. That can never be forgiven.
Why?
Tragedy is his meat. Where he can't smell it out, he fabricates. Will you sit and listen to my story?
I will.
You're brave. My daughter was brave.
1 comments:
tragedy is his meat
good
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