It was 9 a.m. on a weekday.
Avoiding Frank was difficult., Even as the summer was winding down his parents still insisted he work, putting aside money for college and learning the value of landscaping. They accepted his excuse of a day off the first time he did it, then the second, third, and fourth day when he explained Frank was working a double shift. But the sixth day reminded them of his earlier evasions.
"You're not going to spend the whole summer sitting in your room," said his mother in the doorway.
"Summer is almost over, Mom. School starts in a couple weeks," he replied.
"You have a duty to Mr. Stadic, Charles. What does it say about you when you shirk that?"
Charles muttered something under his breath and penciled a gallows tree.
"What did you say?" asked his mother, miffed.
"I said I don't want to help him anymore." The sketchbook rattled in his hands.
"And why not?" she asked, arms folded. She was locked into place and expected an answer. But he couldn't give her the real answer. That he'd slipped out at midnight and invaded Frank's home, found the man hanging like a Christmas ornament in his secret Inquisition, surrounded by a all holy hell. Sometimes he wondered if he'd dreamed it all. Phantasmagorisuburbia. His subconscious mind barfing up the most bizarre images imaginable about his hometown. But it was real. It smelled and felt real, and he was still smelling it days on. Again, Frank never hurt anyone but himself, but still... It was weird, and not the fun kind.
"I just don't. I'm done," he said. She'd never buy it.
"I don't buy it," his mother said. "Get ready for work, mister. I'm walking you over..."
Charley didn't allow her to finish, instead snapping up and throwing his sketchbook on the bed and thrusting his feet into his grass-stained gym shoes. Not even bothering to tie them he stomped out, his mother tiredly saying, "Charley, no... Charley..."behind him as he stomped down the stairs. He didn't slam the front door, but he wanted to.
He slammed Frank's front door instead.
"Frank!" cried Charles.
"Charley!" Frank happily called back from the living room.
"Didymus!" said Cal as he came around the corner to meet him in the foyer. "You're just in time for Frank's party." In support of this unlikely event, Frank stepped around the corner wearing a pointed party hat and holding a glass of fruit punch. He seemed pleased, very pleased, baring a small, uncomfortable, but open-mouthed smile of worn yellow teeth.
"Come in, Charles. Come in. We're all here. All of us," he said, lifting up a beckoning hand.
Hands on his back, Cal and Frank lightly pushed Charles into the front room where Freddy and Judy sat on opposite ends of the couch. The usual stacks and piles of Frank's pickings were everywhere, but the coffee table at the room's center had been cleared off and covered with platters of snack cakes and two large cans of fruit punch. While Frank faced Charles, face still alight at the return of his friend, Freddy could be seen pouring the contents of a tiny bottle into his punch. He nudged Judy and made a silent offer of the bottle to her, but she shook her head no, covering her cup with her other hand to ensure no impurification. As Charles stood beside Cal—already placing a plastic cup of overly red beverage into his hand—the older man walked happily over to the couch and sat down between the two, now facing Judy and smiling at her. The girl didn't seem as creeped out as Charles thought she'd be, not even flinching when Frank momentarily touched the back of her hand and laughed.
"Come now, Charles," said Cal. "We're starting a new project today?"
"What's that?" Charles responded, now noticing that the room was brighter than before, the curtains drawn back to allow what sunlight could leak through the window grime.
"Frank's re-socialization," Cal replied. He gestured at the two with his fruity beverage. "They're getting along pretty well, don't you think?"
Gesticulating more largely that his hunched and gnarled frame seemed capable of, the older man finished a joke. The air rippled with a girl's bright laughter. Even Freddy allowed himself a minor grin.
"How long has this been going on?"
Cal looked upwards. "Hm, when did you disappear? Right after we liberated the angel, I suppose. When you stomped home we all had a nice chat. Frank is positively smit with Judy. I think she's the daughter he always wanted to fu..."
"Shut your mouth," Charles said, thrusting the drink back at Cal.
"Careful! Careful. Francis is making a rare exception by letting us celebrate in here. Spill the punch and you're likely to stain the rug."
"The rug is encrusted with the shit of a thousand trash cans," Charles harshly whispered, dragging Cal with him to the kitchen, noticed only for a second by the others before another joke was told and Judy released another series of tinkling bell laughs. "And when the hell did it become Francis?"
Placing the drinks in the kitchen sink, the near-albino turned and tilted his head to the right, shaking his head slightly in fake pity.
"Charles is jealous."
"Of what?" Charles whispered angrily.
"Of your two best girls finding each other," Cal said.
"What?" He felt himself falling apart inside, but he wasn't sure why.
"Oh, it's one-sided, to be sure. The Troll has been so removed from anything approaching normal human interaction, he's fallen for the first pretty face to speak nicely to him," Cal said, now leaning against the refrigerator. "She's totally oblivious to it, I'm sure. Some sort of Catholic girl mother-superior-nurse-saint thing, I suppose. But him... Oh, he can taste sugar on the tip of his tongue."
Disgusted, a small white flame started to burn in Charles' head. A dark and deadly curse was working itself up in his head, and he prepared to open his mouth to smite Cal with its full fury, but then Freddy walked in an stood there, looking at Cal.
"Yes?" said Cal.
Freddy kept looking at Cal, and then behind him.
"'Darrrrrr…I'd like to open the fridge please, Cal,' might work, you bucktoothed throwback," Cal said acidly.
"I'd like to get into the..." Freddy started to say.
"Oh, for God's sake," Cal said, standing aside. "Get what you want and go. I don't need to hear that thick dull voice of yours, Freddy."
The oaf pushed open the door and retrieved an off-brand cola, popped it open and let the fridge door close slowly.
"Hey, Cal, we practicing tonight?"
"Did I say otherwise?" Cal answered, looking at Freddy with low-lidded eyes. "Mind, Freddy? I'm talking to Charles."
"Fine. Asshole," said Freddy as he turned and walked out of the kitchen. But not before stopping and turning again, spilling his coke slightly. "Hey, I think Judy likes me."
"No, she doesn't. She really, really doesn't," Cal said without looking at him. "Get out." Freddy turned again and stomped away.
"Why is Freddy here?" Charles asked, though he had many more questions in mind. Opening the fridge he assessed the sparsity of Frank's groceries: several six packs of soda, a loaf of bread, and three kinds of lunch meat, before selecting a cola. The pop can fizzed as he opened it, spitting brown sugar water on his fingertips. In a secret ritual he brought the sprayed fingers up to his nose and sniffed lightly. Metal and sugar. It smelled like electricity would smell in liquid form, he thought.
"Are you done huffing your fingers, Charles?" Cal asked.
"What?"
"They ought to put that on your gravestone, Charles. 'Charles Francis Toffit: 'What?'" Cal said with a smirk. "Anyway, all's forgiven between me and Freddy. What did you expect?"
"Well, if someone had tagged me the way he did you, I would have kicked his ass to the curb." Charles took a sip of cola.
"Well..." Cal shifted about so he was leaning on the counter now. "That's something you haven't learned to appreciate, Charles. Freddy is scum, yes, but he's useful scum. In terms of pure acquisition he has more value to me than, well, you."
"Uh, thanks," said Charles.
"Well, only because Freddy can get his hands on certain things and can still open certain doors. He's closer to being normal than either of us. You look more normal than he does, but you're growing farther and farther away from me."
"Sorry." He didn't mean it. No, Cal's words didn't hurt.
"No, you're really not," said Cal. And he sipped his drink. "Mmmm, whiskey. Four of these and I feel like I'm made of warm brown felt."
"What did Freddy mean by practice?"
Breathing in and out with a soft wind sound, Cal pushed away from the counter. "Yeah, that's another thing. You're purposefully out of touch, but you still want to be part of the gang. Anyway... Me, Freddy, and two guys up in the city have started a band. Freddy plays bass. I play guitar."
That was new. "A band? Since when?"
Cal took another drink. "A month or so, I guess. I tried to share that with you, but..." Now Cal looked soft and uncomfortable and more like a young boy than the blank white goblin he presented to the world.
Another drink and darting eyes, to and fro.
"I never know what to share with you, Charles."
"Maybe if you weren't such a hypercritical asshole about everything..."
"When have I ever?" asked Cal, starting up. And the sad fact was that he looked as if he meant it. A twinge of guilt occurred in Charley's heart. Mentally, he squashed it underfoot.
"Am I supposed to feel bad for you? You're not such a bad guy after all, even after years of being one?"
"I've always thought very highly of you, Charles," said Cal. "And I like to think that I've supported your little doodling hobby." And again he looked like he meant it, but this time the look of surprise and mild offense was less heart-twinging and more punch-to-the-jaw-inspiring. In his mind Charles prepared the wind-up, but Frank entered, still wearing that ridiculous hat.
"What's going on? What's going on?" Frank said, absolutely giddy. "We can't have my two friends hiding away in here. Come join us, please. I'm so h-h-ha..." Now the giddiness turned into a body-shaking tremor and dribbling beads of forehead sweat. Glasses full of perspiration, Frank's eyes boggled fishily in miniature aquariums.
"So, hapless? So hated?" suggested Cal. "So haddock-like might work right now. Whence came the stutter, Frank?"
"Leave him alone," said Charles.
"As you wish," replied Cal, shrugging.
"No, I'm h-h-happy. For the first time since Mother passed..." he grabbed the shoulders of each boy, Cal's right and Charles' left, and gently kneaded them. "You are good friends, and I want you to know..."
There was a prolonged silence in which Charles and Cal's exchanged glances. Momentarily, rancor was mitigated by a desire for mutual self-preservation. And Frank shook like a earthquake, his eyes gone dark and muddy with tears.
"Know what, Frank?" asked Charles, cautiously touching Frank's forearm.
"That you are my good friends. You. Are." Now the shaking stopped,
"Well, okay, Francis," said Cal. "That's great."
"Yeah, thanks," said Charles, who felt his head growing light.
The older man reached up and removed the party hat, revealing a head covered with more hair that they imagined. In fact they pictured a shiny bald spot where instead there was matted grey and black hair. Neither comb nor shampoo had run through those locks in some time. Frank scratched at his head, his dirty fingernails trying to penetrate that flattened hair shield.
"I'm wondering if maybe it's time," Frank said, still scratching. "Yea, I believe so. It's not done yet, but... Yes." Walking over to the hook where he hung his hat, he picked up the cap and placed it back on his head. Turning and beckoning softly, he went to the basement door.
"We must needs be quiet," whispered Frank. "The others aren't ready for illumination."
"Always up for illumination," said Cal, walking toward the door and smiling. "Though I think Charles has yet to be properly illuminated."
Frank walked down the steps, stopping just inside the doorframe. As the boys passed he turned and set the latch.
"Just a precaution," said Frank. "Satellite worrywarts and preserving the other children's thoughts."
"Well, this seems terribly familiar, doesn't it Charles?" said Cal, still walking down the stairs and whistling a circus tune. "I'd be worried if Frank had a crawl space, but luckily he just has a cellar."
"Frank, people know where we are..." Charles said, but Frank only passed him by on the staircase with a confused glance.
"Ah, I know where you are too, Charley," he said, still walking on to the large table covered by the sheet. "But as worse comes to worseness, They always know where We all are." With a swift jerk, Frank pulled the sheet away revealing...
Exactly what was revealed Charles and an equally surprised and wide-eyed Cal couldn't say. A thing, a device, a grand and improbably complex whatsit.
"Surely this man is the son of God," uttered Cal with awe .
The whatsit was beautiful, whatever it was. The best approximation would be the layout for a toy railroad—albeit there were three sets built in tiers, one atop another—with rings of tracks, hills and tunnels, fake foliage, tiny buildings, and similar accouterments. Yet it was not a railroad set, and the diorama better resembled an extraterrestrial landscape than a pleasant country scene. Where there would be green spreading fields and tree-topped hills were bright purple funguses interspersed with shiny hot pink splotches that might be bodies of water, broken glass roads in a dozen colors, and sharp metal bits that derived from aluminum beer and pop cans that appeared to be foliage, they supposed. The houses and buildings, such as they might be called, were organic outgrowths of the terrain—polyurethane foam sealant sculpted and painted to serve the scene. Strange tableaus of unidentifiable creatures tarried about the diorama. They appeared vaguely octopoid, heads sprouting a mass of tentacles and eyestalks, their bodies draped in clothing neither possible nor desirable on any human body.
The weirdness delighted to boys, filling them with a glee they hadn't known in years. Charles stood up, not thinking of his almost abduction anymore, entranced. Upon closer examination, each of the three levels had several tiny stairways or chutes leading up or down to another floor. A pit in the center of the center tier spiraled down to the next level. Reaching into his pocket, Frank withdrew two steel ball-bearings and flicked one across the middle tier, then the other in another direction. Each sphere assumed a life of its own, following invisible paths on the board.
One ball bearing remained on the center tier, ending up in a pool in which the winged octopi swam. It bounced betwixt them until a small trapdoor snapped open and swallowed it whole. The board still rattled with its presence, and at last it dropped to the bottom tier where a black bucket marked with the word "PECCAVI" snapped over and trapped it.
The second ball bearing found a ladder, which grabbed it in some magnetic manner then raised it up to the highest level, unseen, until a small trebuchet caught and flung it across the top level, right into a dozen doll's hands that seized it like many mousetraps at the center of a large painted eye. A jingle of happy bells was suddenly heard.
The final ball bearing, shining silver, found the center pit of the middle tier. Cal stepped up and bent over slightly to watch it. The ball bearing ran the rim of the pit, circling over and over again around its spiraling shape. After a minute the ball bearing tumbled down to the next level. Charles fell to his knees—lights switched on, and a lower hell formed before his eyes. Beasties of all stripes tracked the ball bearing as it mechanically tumbled over and through their lips and teeth and tongues. The sphere rolled like a damned soul, whereupon a googly-eyed creature on the level took sight of it and chased it down along a slotted groove. Now Frank was manipulating it like a hockey player with a rod along the side, and the tiny beastie devil creature chased the bearing with a sharpened stick, prodding it toward another hole where it fell in and vanished. A hissing sound came from the board.
"I have a soldering iron down there. It melts down the bad balls and forms them into rods again, then the process re-begins."
"And the good balls go where?" asked Cal.
"Um..." said the older man who'd never considered the question before. "They sort of stay where they are, in Heaven. I suppose."
"Ah. So second chances exist for bad balls," replied Cal, coating himself with a new veneer of cool disdain.
"What?" said the older man, blinking behind his glasses.
"You share Charles' philosophy," said Cal, now wandering over to a stack of detective magazines.
"It's amazing, Frank..." said Charles.
"It's nothing of the sort," Frank retorted slightly sharply. "This is the way the world operates. This is the way of the world. This is the Black Monstrance."
Cal snorted but still didn't turn around, pretending to be rapt by the story of a Wisconsin cannibal.
"What is the Black Monstrance?" Charles wanted to know, though the prickly sickly feeling was taking place in his stomach again. It reached an angry fever pitch this time.
"I can't promise you the secrets of the universe, Charley, but I can provide a sketch," Frank said. He tapped the Black Monstrance. "This is my sketch. My sketch of the Black Monstrance."
Then Frank lifted himself up onto the diorama. It was surprisingly strong, despite the delicacy of its design. Or perhaps Frank less heavy than he thought. He was a splinter of a man atop his little world.
"Look," said Frank, pointing to a section of the Black Monstrance on the top level. Here's where the good intentions begin." The object appeared to be a model of a factory, and old factory with angular window thingies and a series of four smokestacks. Frank pressed a button and the smokestacks belched out white magician's smoke.
"God sits here in his little factory. We're not allowed to see him or how he does it, but I suspect it's much like the Santa's toy shop."
Cal now looked back at Charles with an arched eyebrow and a wicked grin.
"Now, I don't believe in the Santa, nor elves, no," said Frank, now cross-legged atop the Black Monstrance. "But the principle's the same. Fat little man sitting up in the North Pole with no means of conveyance, or matter of receiving raw supplies. He and God must be the center of the factory, where all intentions emerge, for good or bad. Sainted nuns and serial killers, all emerge from here with whatever perfectly good explanation God has for their existence. You see?"
They saw not.
Frank trailed a finger across the heaven section.
"Note there is little more in heaven than tubes and gutters. God doesn't like distractions. Everyone is stuffed inside the factory, which is simply perfect, being as you're with God and busy and all. And the nothingness and Hells outside are so absolutely dull, it makes the factory seem like a blessed fun place. Do you follow me?"
Charles did not follow him. The logic to Frank's arguments was all his own. Linear, but applicable to nothing. He stayed mum and listened to Frank weave, warp, and woof. Cal decided blankness would only cheat him of further amazement. He walked back to Charles' side.
"Note too that Heaven is full of holes. God's factory shoots out the baby balls through worn grooves in Heaven's firmament. Here the typical babies emerge. Special babies, like ourselves, follow different routes. Baby balls slide about and through heaven, finding the randomized place where they will drop into the laps of their parents'—wanted or no." He stressed this point by placing his index fingers together. "Wanted… or no."
"It only stands to reason!" said Cal, elbowing Charles. "I always wondered where babies came from." Charles didn't feel the elbow, entranced as he was by the complexity of the mechanism and Frank's bottomlessly creative ingenuity.
"How did you build all this alone?" Charles started to say. But Frank waved him into silence.
Frank pressed another button and the factory came to red and green flashing-colored life. A minute passed, then gears within set a baby ball on its path. Firing out the factory like a bullet and skittering across heaven's floor, traveling a less worn groove at the back. Frank seemed mildly surprised at the sight of the perfect ball bearing infant.
With a rattling roll the baby ball found the end of its personal Heaven, a spiraling funnel that wound down toward the middle material plane. With a sweet shushing sound the baby ball rolled to its place on earth. Frank leapt from his throne and stabbed a finger at where the baby ball ended up.
"Asia," said Frank, "So surprising. Not much coming from there, save the Japanese, Taiwans, Prediluctians. Looks like he landed in Cambrosia. Stranger things have happened," he said, looking back at the boys. "Perhaps it's a case of too bad and so sad robotic genius appropriation of self. Many geniuses are probably ready to be born in Cambrosia, but the weeds of the secular world reach up and strangle them before they have a chance to fly."
The baby ball sat in "Cambrosia," until a small hammer beneath the material plane swung upwards and knocked it up, out, and into the clutches of a magnet sailing by overhead. Running a track as thin as a pencil, the claw skimmed the length of the board, spanning the distance between Frank's "Cambrosia" and an unpleasant series of lumps that might have been the Americas. Suddenly enervated, the claw released the ball into an area resembling a field of flaming red volcanos, or perhaps they were geysers. Or elephantine pores, mayhap, thought Cal.
"That was a surprise, eh? Or not such a surprise, I guess, considering the vectors." Frank's agitation was now completely subsumed. He danced with the energy of man filled with thrills of grand dimensions, and he was as at ease as he must have been in his most private and safest moments. Smacking and rubbing his hands together, he erratically one-legged jigged in one place. "But wait! Let's see what happens next."
What happened wasn't much. The ball rolled about the area of the Americas for a time, past the purple fungi and razor metal brush, then disappeared into a hole that wasn't there a second before.
"Huh, must have been a stillburn breach," said Frank. "You know?"
The boys just stared at him, and the ordinarily cool basement became quite hot for Frank. "You, uh, you're, uh, you... Uh." Sweat burst forth anew from his brow. "You're not saying much."
Cal returned to his magazine page-flipping, "I suppose it's all right, if you like that sort of thing."
"You're full of shit, Cal," Charles said, moving forward to inspect the device more closely. "It's amazing, Frank. It truly is. But what is it?"
That seemed to perplex Frank. "It's, it's, it's..." he stuttered. "It's simply the way of the world, isn't it? It's what they call douche ex mafia."
That set Cal off in an explosion of titters. "Frank obviously made himself a Black Monstrance, Charles. You know he's good with his hands."
From the top of the stairs, came a clatter of knocks.
"Hey, Cal? Hey?" It was Freddy's muffled voice. "Hey, what are you guys doing down there?"
"We must cover it, now!" commanded Frank. "This is not a sight for unprepared eyes!" Charley moved to take up the other end of the tarp, and with Cal offering no help at all they quickly covered up the Black Monstrance.
"Hey, Cal?" came Freddy's voice again, querulousness underscored by hammering on the door. And Cal stood at the base of the stairs, looking up balefully.
"Want to rethink that crawlspace, troll?" Charles heard him whisper.
"Eh?" replied Frank, gathering ball bearings that had fallen to the floor. "Whatever you are talking about, never mind it now." At once he looked all around with the jerky motions of an insect. He placed a hand on their shoulders and said, "We're breathing in the same secrets now. I've placed your lives in danger, and I'm very sorry about that, but I felt you must needs know. It's more dangerous to be near this and not know."
"You bet," said Cal. "Mind if I smoke?" Reaching for the pack in his inside pocket, he drew it out, and just as he was started to withdraw a cigarette, Frank snatched it from his hands.
"This..." Frank said. "Is only one of the multitudinous means of mental insemination by the Unidentifiables." Crushing it in his palm, he threw it to the ground and began to stamp down on it with his foot. "You'll not have these lambs!" Frank growled. Charles though that he saw tears in his eyes as he did so.
When Frank stopped he was panting like Siege in August, yet not tired, but rather exhilarated.
"Now," he said. "I have much more to tell you about the Black Monstrance."
And tell them he did. More than they wanted to know.
The party went on, and there was much punch drinking—adulterated and virginal. The older man was as ecstatic as could be, though the strange exhilaration he displayed, with odd bursts into unknown songs, the playing of records by undeniably square if not entirely foreign musicians, and a brief and erratic dance step that threw Judy and Charles into the fear that their host was suffering a brain tumor and was surely ready to fall face-forward into the glass-topped table. Even Cal expressed concern that Frank's drink had been dosed, but the keeper of the tiny bottles of booze, Freddy, whispered denials. What seemed unthinkable was growing more and more apparent—Frank was happy as hell. Which was entirely unsettling.
Not so much for Judy. The older man, as she explained to Charles during a brief kitchen conversation, reminded her very much of a favorite uncle. Slightly goofy, a little socially damaged, but endearing in his friendly imperfection.
"But you must have noticed the smell?" Charles asked, smiling a bit.
"Well..." she said, folding her stick arms and tossing a stray hair back into place. "Yeah, he's kinda rank, isn't he? But he's sweet. Nobody's here to take care of him, Charles. His mother died a few years ago."
"Yeah, I know," said Charles, feeling a bit defensive.
"What did she die of?"
"I don't know." He took another drink of punch and started to admire her. She seemed less stick-thin up close, curves forming, face maturing away from the baby angel she looked like the first time they met.
"You never asked?" said Judy, a little surprised, folding her arms.
"Well... No, I guess not." Now he was uncomfortable. Ordinarily, Charley's shields would have gone up, but she disarmed him. He wanted her to like him, but with every passing second that seemed unlikely. Her eyebrows crossed, wrinkling the light dusting of freckles across her nose. "I saw her once," Charles said, starting to chuckle. "I was in the house, and she surprised me. Man, she was a big fat lady."
"You've been working for him for months, hanging out in his house, and you never bothered to ask about... Wait..." She hesitated, looked down, then looked at him again. "When did you start working for Mr. Stadic?"
Mr. Stadic? It was Mr. Stadic now? Mr. and Mrs. were reserved for adults, not old big kids like Frank, whose homes were underground playgrounds.</i>
"End of May, I guess," Charles said, now feeling the shakiness of the confessional booth again.
"She died two years ago. What were you doing in his house?" Now she was standing with her fists at her side, rooted to the spot even as he felt himself bob and weave.
"Well, I was, uh... I was just curious about what was inside, so I... You know?" Placing the punch down now, to ensure he didn't spill it as his hands shook.
"You broke in," Judy said. "He's a nice man and you..." Now a fire burned deep within her, fueled by disgust and a shattered image.
Charles pretended to be fascinated by the wallpaper.
"I thought you were nice," she said sharply.
"What?"
"What do you mean, 'What?'" Judy said. Such a hateful trait, he thought, always thinking they were so damned superior, so mature and together...
She's right, you know.
"Shut up," Charles whispered to himself. "Shut up."
"Don't tell me to shut up!" Judy said. "What's wrong with you, Charley?" Hands thrown up. Eyes alight and staring. She startled and chilled him, this little girl, his fear of the mystery of the feminine throwing him off.
Shut up? Had he uttered those words? It was growing harder to throw up the wall between his private conversations and reality. Maybe reality was mutating into something else, or the two were slippery oozing into one another and...
Shut up! Charles screamed inwardly. Fix this! Facing a parent, teacher, or boss, he'd have withdrawn by now, but all exits were blocked, by himself. He cared what this little woman thought of him.
"I didn't mean you. I meant me. I've never really, I don't know, appreciated Frank," he said. Body flexing and deflating in a sense of relief, Charley felt like he was about to fall straight down. She softened, a bit, the angry edge of her face dulling a bit in response to this unexpected self-admonishment. What a pleasure that was.
She touched his arm.
Again. She. Touched. His. Arm.
That moment of contact sending an electric blue bolt that raced and fragmented into a hundred little shocks across his skin. Then she drew it back, quickly, making a little claw of her hand.
"Why are you friends with them, Charley?" she asked.
Reflexively, he almost asked "Who?", which was almost redacted and transformed into a "What?", but that too was squashed. This speaking honestly thing was quite exciting. In so many ways.
"Aw, Cal's all right." What was coming out of his mouth? Cal was terrible. The worst of the worst. The purest evil born in the southwest Chicago suburbs. A black and simmering stool sample with an evil grin and ratty eyes.
"No, he's not," she replied, and she looked suddenly afraid, but whether for herself or for him he couldn't be sure. "At school I always heard that Freddy was a burnout and stole stuff. And Cal was..."
This should be interesting.
Shut UP!
These inner conversations were tiring. With imaginary hands and jackhammers, he made the voice smaller and smaller.
"Cal was what?"
"Well, what they said at school was nothing like what Bethany told me..." Judy looked away and down, nibbling on a fingertip. "I'm not supposed to say anything about that, actually."
"Why not?" asked Charles, his face twitching, his tongue tasting blood at the thought of inside information on Calvin Day.
"I'm not supposed to say anything. Bethany asked me not to," she said turning away, facing Frank's wood sculpture of the Madonna. There was a time when that was the most amazing thing I'd ever seen, thought Charles. "She asked me not to. It's not bad. I guess... Just personal."
"Well, what do they say at school?" Charles asked.
Judy took a long breath and walked over to the formica kitchen table, pulled out a chair, and sat down. She sat and stared ahead.
"A lot of the kids think Calvin is a witch. Or some kind of nazi," she said.
"A skinhead? With that hair?" Charley answered mimicking the shape of Cal's white scalp philodendron with his hands. "Anyway, he finds them trite."
"Trite?" She gathered her arms around herself.
"Well, more to the point, he thinks the original Nazis dressed cool, but he thinks skinheads are morons." Leaning back, he studied the ceiling, recovering a memory. "I remember him worshipping the Devil for a couple of weeks, freshman year."
"Cal really was a Satanist?" she said, giving her upper arms a rub with her hands. "Isn't that kind of scary?"
All his energy went into stopping his eyes from rolling. "Well, no, not really. I mean, he went apeshit in his room, filling it with black candles and inverted crosses and pentagrams. He listened to a lot of metal, and he showed me this supposed contract with the devil—signed in his own blood, he said."
"Really?" asked the wide-eyed Judy.
"Well, he had a nose-picking habit, so I'm guessing that's where the blood came from. But gradually he decide the Devil was as real as unicorns. He feels pretty stupid about it now. If you want to annoy him, ask him when Satan is bringing him that black kitty he asked for." Charles chuckled. Judy didn't.
"Bethany mentioned a lot of that. Not the contract, but all the junk he kept in his room..." She folded her hands on the table. "What's funny is, a lot of kids think he's some sort of super-Christian."
Suddenly Charles found it difficult to breathe; laughter and a shocked gasp fought to explode out of him.
"Huh? How the hell do they get that?" Charles said, boggled. For this he had to sit. the chair squeaked as he pulled it back and sat down.
"I don't know really. He wears so much black, he looks like a priest. And for a while he was wearing ties to school. Then I remember him carrying a black book for a long time. Everyone assumed it was a Bible."
A wave of hilarity washed through Charles. His thin face was assailed by a large, many-toothed smile, not seen in years. Judy smiled back.
"What?" she said.
"Yeah, that was a Bible," Charles answered. "But there was nothing in it. Cal hollowed it out so he could sneak stuff into school. He kept a flask in there once, I know for sure. Sometimes other shit. Probably his stash."
"Oh," she said, the smile fading.
"Our homeroom teacher almost caught him once," Charles said, obliviously grinning. "But he was smart enough to leave most of the Old Testament intact. In-between hits of scotch he pretended he was skimming second Chronicles."
"Oh," Judy said again.
Now he noticed she wasn't laughing with him, and he swallowed. "I mean, that's pretty funny, right?"
"I guess. Well, I don't know," she replied, looking down at her folded hands. She looked particularly pretty then—sunshine from the porch door hitting her just right, and a lack of competition from the surrounding beige bleakness. "I guess I don't understand why you waste your time on things like that."
"Waste my... Things like what?" he asked, leaning forward. Running her right hand's fingers through her hair, she had never looked more beautiful, Charles thought, staring rapt, but ready to look away if she looked up.
"It just seems like you're trying to impress each other with how awful you can be..." she said. "But, well, don't take this the wrong way, but there's something kind of dorky about it."
For the moment, she ceased to be attractive.
The muscles in his face went rigid; wet concrete poured through the top of his head, and now it was setting his face into a solid expression of pure judgment. But inside he was a buzzsaw slipped free of its restraints, spinning and bouncing about the walls of his skull, rending and shredding anything in its path.
"I don't think there's anything dorky about what we do..." he said in measured tones, jabbing a finger for extra emphasis "Just because you want to be the same as everybody else..."
"Charley, I don't think you're a dork..." she interrupted with concern that he knew to be false—because he was perceptive that way. Then she leaned in, looking over a shoulder briefly, and whispered, "I just think you're so talented—I mean Bethany showed me some those pictures you drew for Cal—and you could do better if you weren't hanging out with those... those two..."
"Criminals?" he said. "Thugs?"
"No..." She leaned back into her chair again, looking a little sad for him. "Dorks."
As much as he knew she was wrong, he still felt a need for a dramatic gesture. He stood up, out of his chair, nearly knocking it over, and rested his knuckles on the table. How very much he wanted to say something that would cut her. How he'd like to tell her to take her opinion and shove it somewhere deep and painful. How he'd like to completely ignore something that had played around the edges of his mind all summer, but which he would never have put into words until she said it just then.
"You know, it's complicated," Charles answered, quietly. "It's..."
Loyalty?
Nah. If Cal was hanging off a cliff, choking on poison, being eaten by wolves, and sizzling over a bonfire below, Charles would hope that he'd been the cause of it all.
Inspiration?
In some small part, perhaps, though maybe it was more properly called freedom. Hanging out with lowlife scum put few dampers on ones actions, and he'd seen things he knew he'd never have found without them. He doubted he'd like drawing as much if he'd been restricted to cutesy illustrations for the school paper and yearbook.
Unpredictable familiarity?
Absolutely. For all Cal's vulgarity and Freddy's stupidity, they were never boring. Life amongst the normal would have required wrist-slitting within the space of a week.
Love?
And where did that one come from, dear Charles?
No, it wasn't love. More like hate. Perhaps hatelove, if it existed. He couldn't bear to be apart from the object of his detestation.
"Dear Charles!" said Cal as he entered the room, face flushed with the good cheer of airplane liquor. "And Judy. What's going on in here?"
While elevator music played in the other room—where Freddy could be heard asking a humming Frank not to dance—Cal sauntered in, rubbing Judy's back as he passed, and continuing on to where Charles stood. There was a a sway to his step, a slight dancing motion, his usually creepy grin now turned into a sloppy half smile.
"You and Bethany, Judy! You and Bethany!" Cal said, smiling.
Judy looked to Charles then to Cal. "Me and Bethany, what?"
"Ah, the two of you," Cal continued. Then he reached across from behind and grabbed Charles' opposite shoulder, and gave it a squeeze as his pulled Charles to him and kissed his cheek.
"Whoa!" Charles cried, breaking away. "Time to stop, Cal."
"What? I can't buss my good friend when I want to?" Cal said. Then he took another drink. "You're too muc a prude, Charles. How you expect to get anywhere with that over there..." he gestured at Judy. "I'm not sure. Maybe you can do it like a fish. Spunk on a rock and then she floats along and squats on it. Lacks the friction, but I think it's your best chance."
"Shut the hell up!" Charles said angrily, punching Cal in the chest, just enough to throw him off-balance. Drink spilling, Cal only laughed.
"Oh my God, I am so... You're revolting, Calvin," said a disgusted Judy, standing up and putting up her hands.
"Yeah, that's something new. That's something I've never heard before, ever ever, Judy," Cal said, now looking down at his drink. "I was just thinking what a gesture it would be to throw this cup against the wall and watch it shatter. Paper cups are leeched of drama. Maybe I'll just empty it with gusto." Tipping the glass, he drained it it in a gulp, crushed the cup with all his skeletal strength, then smirked at them.
"Oh yeah?" said Judy. "You know, you don't impress me, Calvin Day. Especially since I know you go whining to your baby sister every night."
There would have been a moment of stark silence then, but Frank's elevator music—something from the Jobim oeuvre—took care of that.
"All right," said Cal. "All right. What have you got to say, Judy Carmen?"
"Nothing... I shouldn't have said anything. Bethany asked me..."
"We're being so goddamned open here, Judy Carmen! Using full Christian names and everything!" Calvin started yelling. "Tell me what my bitch sister told you! You think you can shock me? You think I care? You think you can hold anything over my head, you cooze? I'm going to..." Cal began walking toward Judy, who stepped back rapidly, but before he could go further Charles was already grabbing him from behind, restraining him. But Cal broke free, pushing Charles down, and was seizing Judy's shoulders. Calvin's white skull face was inches from hers now.
"Did she say I fucked her? Did she Judy? Were you eager to break that news to Charles?" Cal screamed.
Charles started to get up. He was ready to destroy Cal. Hurt him again and again.
"No!" Judy started to cry. "She just said you were sad sometimes, and you'd talk about your problems with her. She..."
Drawing back his arm to punch her, Cal was surprised not just when when Charles grabbed it and pulled him back, but when Frank barreled in, seized his coat lapels, and forced him all the way to the other side of the kitchen. When Cal slammed against the wall, the house shook.
"You will apologize to the young lady," Frank said, evenly. He was always a bit shorter than Cal, but now Cal seemed to have gained an extra few inches in height. The sudden difference was explained when Charles saw that Frank wasn't just holding Cal against the wall, but a few inches above it. Cal struggled. Hunched up, his arms were bound up in his coat, so he couldn't strike Frank.
"Fuck you, troll!" he said. "Fuck you, you pervert son of a..."
Frank slammed him against the wall again.
"You will apologize to the young lady," Frank said again.
"Hey, what the hell?" Freddy asked, walking in. "Hey, put down Cal."
"I will let him down when he apologizes to the young lady," said Frank. Was it colder because of Frank's dispassion? Charles and Judy, now standing off the the side, thought so.
"Listen, you better..." Freddy said, starting to grab the older man's left arm. But Frank kept Cal up with the right one while pushing Freddy onto his ass. Frank returned both hands to the duty of holding Cal up. No one else saw what Cal saw: the ordinarily nerdish face of Frank, now set, his glittering tiny eyes slightly darting in saccades. And he felt a little afraid.
But he was still Cal.
"Put me down, you crazy shit!" He tried to kick Frank in the testicles, but the angle and his lack of strength wouldn't permit it.
"I let you into my home," Frank said evenly. "I offer you work. I give you things. I ignore your foul mouth. I try to help you, you sad boy. I try to protect you from the world's blackness."
"Fuck you!" cried Cal. It sounded like he was having trouble breathing, so Charles approached Frank and touched his shoulder.
"Frank, let him down. He can't breathe very well that way."
"Yes, he let you down, and he let me down, and he let HER down, Charley," Frank said, his words choking slightly.
"Cal, just this once, stop being an asshole," Charles said. "Apologize."
Betrayal, as Cal interpreted it, flickered in his face. But Charles only shook his head slightly.
"I'm sorry... I'm sorry," said Cal. The older man let him down slowly. Still gripping Cal by the lapels, Frank looked over his shoulder at the crying girl, waiting to see if she'd accepted Cal's apology. Judy only bit her fingernails and looked at Cal through tear streaks. Restoring Cal to the earth, Frank let go and turned away, sticking his hands in his pockets without looking at anyone.
"There." said Frank. "There. Now everyone is friends again."
Cal, still finding his footing, stumbled back, first looking at Frank with disbelief, then at Charles with a rueful gaze, trying to kill him on the spot with his gaze. But Charles remained standing. Without another word, Cal turned and rushed to the front door, issuing small coughs from his wounded throat. Freddy, as ever, followed close behind, silent as Cal waved away any words he might have shared. Neither shut the front door.
When Frank turned back to the boy and girl he saw two small and quivering creatures looking at him as if he was a monster.
"I think the party is over, perhaps," said Frank, rubbing the feeling back into his hands. Taking his glasses off, he cleaned them off, and not very well, with the flannel of his shirt. "But, if you'll stick with me, I have one last thing to show you. Something you'll treasure, I hope. Give me a little more time, please. Just a little more, and I'll call to you."
With a familiar lope and limp, Frank left the kitchen, walking over to and down the side stairs to the lower room that led to the garage. Alone with the girl, she looked at him as if he knew what was coming next, and silently appointed him to make whatever decision was required.
"Do you want to stay?" Charles asked her.
"No," she answered softly, still shaking a bit. "But I'm afraid to leave."
"I know what you mean," Charley said, voice low, though Frank was already across the house, jiggling his garage door key the requisite number of times before committing to opening it.
"One more thing," Charles said. "One more thing for Frank, okay?"
A clatter of chains and falling metal hitting concrete came from the garage, followed by dark curses and imprecations from an unpracticed tongue. Something about "cursed turtles" and "dumbed stupids."
"What is he doing?" she asked, biting a fingernail.
"Swearing," Charles said. "He's not very good at it."
"Charles! Young lady! Please meet me out front!" Frank yelled, a voice brighter than the ridiculously vile one of a minute before. A more familiar sound followed, the rolling clatter and clunk of a garage door thrown wide open.
The front door was still left open through Cal's lack of etiquette. They walked out, Charles first, into a pleasant summer's day. The neighborhood was still there, unchanged but a bit greener and brighter, high noon sun leaving no trace of darkness in the perfectly trimmed greenery of Frank's front lawn.
"Over here!" cried Frank from the driveway. They turned the corner and saw him standing proudly beside Mrs. Kwiecinski's tricycle, now fully restored. Gleaming, almost. All three tires were full and meaty with air, the stray spokes tamed and replaced, the handlebars proudly upturned and ready for guidance. Once colored the dusty gray of neglect, it was now a cheerful and metallic candy-apple red, with the fenders and handlebars all chrome and shining in the noonday sun. If Frank deserved any title, it was miracle-worker, not only restoring the trike's luster and usability, but making such an ordinarily pathetic and irredeemably pathetic device appear almost wondrously cool.
"Yes?" Frank said waving his hands over it. "Yes, yes?"
"It's beautiful, Mr. Stadic," said Judy.
"Frank, you're a genius," Charles added. The older man glowed at that, smiling broadly at him. He once again his thick glasses and stepped away from the trike. Judy was already beside it, running her hands over the metal and inspecting it up close.
"I think it needs a restored maiden voyage," he said while gesturing at the seat.
"Nah," Charles said, "I think this is your moment, Frank."
Brought up the way he was, that was the permission Frank sought, and he strode up and excitedly saddled the tricycle. With the strength they had just witnessed inside, Frank began pumping at the big bike's pedals, turning the handlebars and directing it down the driveway and into the street (but not before he looked both ways, Charles noted). It wasn't jet propulsion, but Frank's little legs gave the trike more speed and power than he would have supposed possible. Charles and Judy watched as he soared up and down the street, happy as hell and making no secret of it, squealing in glee. Judy, plainly amused, stood behind Charles, resting that tiny hand on his shoulder. She waved with her right each time the older man passed by, but Charles felt the tremor of her left.
"Yeeeeeee!" exclaimed an exhilarated Frank, returning the wave. "Yeeeee! Yeeeeee!"