It was over. Al got off him. The others released him. Five dark forms slipped quickly and soundlessly out of the room and disappeared.
In the morning when Dr. Franks called Hop into his office to speak to him, he discovered the cigarette burns and asked how he had gotten them.
Hop shrugged and avoided the doctor’s eyes, his hand on his chest now.
“Very strange,” said Dr. Franks. “You don’t know?”
Hop looked out the window and shook his head.
“Which boys did it? Tell me their names.”
“Nobody did it,” said Hop, raising his eyes slowly. “I fell asleep while I was smoking and burned myself.”
“Oh, I see, you fell asleep three times. That’s a new one I’ve never heard before.”
“That’s what happened,” Hop insisted. “I fell asleep.”
Dr. Franks nodded. He knew what had happened, but he also knew it was useless to try to get anything out of Hop. When something like this occurred, no one ever talked, no one ever admitted anything.
As the days passed, Hop continued to pay tribute to Al, making sure he always had cigarettes so nothing would happen again. Most of the time he stayed far away from him and, whenever he could, he stole into his room to watch the pigeons.
Everyone knew about them now, and though three boys slept in the same room with Hop, the pigeons were known as his. Al knew about them too. Sometimes he would go look at them and taunt Hop, saying he intended to eat them. Afraid to say anything, Hop never answered.
One day he discovered an egg in the nest. This excited him, but he said nothing, wanting no one else to know. That very day another boy also discovered the egg and dashed from the room to spread the word.
A group of boys came running into the bedroom. They crowded the window and stared at the egg. Their interest died quickly and they left. Hop remained. He stared at the egg. It was almost dusk now, long blue shadows were lunging across the wide breast of the river. Finally there came a sound of wings, a fluttering, and the familiar cooing on the window ledge.
The pigeons were back, and Hop watched them for a while, till they bedded down and closed their bright little eyes. He went back to his bed and stared at the ceiling, thinking of the little egg under the breast of the hen. Tomorrow there might be another. Soon, at least, there would be one new member added to his family.
Next morning the egg was still there when Hop looked, but the pigeons had gone off. Staring at the egg for a while, Hop walked out of the room. Coming back, he went to the window again only to find the egg gone and the nest disturbed. There were three boys in the room and they stared at Hop. They said nothing. Hop didn’t know how the screen had been opened. But that didn’t matter now. The egg was gone. Walking out of the bedroom, he suddenly ran and disappeared somewhere. At breakfast call, they had to search for him. When they found him and brought him to the table, he wouldn’t eat or look at anyone.
At the other end of the long table and on the opposite side sat Al. He looked down the length of the table at Hop, a grin on his face. “What’s the matter, Hop?” he said. “Your egg disappear?”
Hearing this taunt, Hop raised his eyes.
“The poor little pigeon egg. Do you know who took it? I did. You look so worried I thought you might want to know. I took it and I smashed it. I stamped it flat...”
Hop stared at his tormentor, his face white. He stood up. There was a knife at the table, and then it was suddenly in his hand.
Al looked around at the others. He didn’t have time to open his mouth before the knife went into him, up and down, and he jerked with it and fell across the table. Blood began to spread on the table.
There was a clatter as the knife fell, then the sound of running footsteps and Hop was gone.
After that nobody did anything or said anything at all until the guards came into the room and went after Hop. The other boys followed them, leaving Al alone on the table.
They found Hop sitting quietly at the window where the empty nest was, waiting for the pigeons to come back.
The Competitors
by Richard Deming
The whole trouble was that there weren’t enough people dying. The funeral directors had to think of a way to remedy the situation.
The village of Shannon wasn’t big enough for two funeral parlors, Sam Potter thought morosely. One for each fifteen hundred population. Even if he and Dave continued to get their fair half of the available business, future prospects were gloomy. Particularly since Shannon natives tended to live to such discouraging old age.
This was largely because of the nature of the community, Sam reflected as he paused in his raking of the already immaculate lawn to examine without pleasure the sedate sign reading: Potter and Clemson Mortuary. A sleepy Western New York State village on the shore of Lake Erie, Shannon had no large industries to provide hazardous occupations, so little crime there hadn’t been a murder in thirty years, and a disgustingly healthy climate.
If only Harry Averill had been content to stick to the furniture business and hadn’t decided, three years back, to branch out into the funeral business also, Sam thought resentfully, he and Dave would still have a comfortable living. After enjoying a monopoly for fifteen years, it was a little hard to see half your business snatched away by a man who already had a way to make a living. Then in grudging fairness Sam had to admit it was Averill’s son insisting on studying to be an embalmer which had induced the elder Averill to enter the field, and not pure avarice.
He went back to his raking, a short, round little man in his forties whose normal expression was a benign smile instead of the frown his face now wore.
Dave Clemson came from the funeral home’s garage, where he had been tinkering with the engine of the ancient hearse, and walked across the lawn toward Sam. Glad of an excuse, Sam again stopped his raking and leaned on the rake handle as his partner approached.
Dave Clemson was the same age as Sam Potter, also a bachelor, and for business purposes had cultivated an identically benign expression. But there the resemblance ended. Dave was four inches taller than Sam and as thin as a rail.
When he reached Sam, Dave stopped and said in a discouraged voice, “It’s no use. She’s finally done.”
“The hearse?” Sam asked.
“What else?” the thin man snapped at him.
“You don’t have to bite my head off,” Sam said mildly. “Maybe it’s not as bad as you think.”
“It’s as bad as I think,” Dave assured him. “The cylinders are too big now to bore out again, the pistons are warped and the head’s almost eaten through. Nothing but a new motor would ever make her run again. Also the transmission’s shot and the rear end is ready to go out. After eighteen years, what could you expect?”
Sam asked, “What are we going to do?”
“Either buy a new hearse or fold up.”
“A new hearse!” Sam said, appalled. “Where do we get the sixty-five hundred bucks?”
“I figure eighty-five hundred. For a combination hearse and ambulance.”
Sam’s voice rose to a squeak. “A combination job! What in the devil do we need with an ambulance?”
“I’ve had it in mind for some time,” Dave said. “Come inside and we’ll talk it over.”
By tacit agreement they went to the casket display room in the basement, as it was the coolest room in the building. And as always before a business conference, Dave got some ice from the refrigerator in the embalming room, squeezed a couple of the lemons he always kept in the same refrigerator and made two tall glasses of lemonade. Neither man spoke until they were both comfortably seated, had their pipes going and had sampled their drinks.