I ducked back, when in the moment previous, a door within had opened. Young Walter first appeared, and what followed at his side was a faltering figure and a tap-tap-tapping sound. It was only the sparest daylight through the minute windows that afforded any light at all. The figure, as I squinted, seemed to be using crutches, and though it was through a wedge of darkness that this figure walked, my detection of long, grey hair told me that this could only be Mary’s stepfather; Walter was helping him along, toward the makeshift bed.
The oddest noises of protestation resounded when he finally got to the bed and, with great difficulty, managed to lie down in it. I could make out almost nothing in the way of details, but the broader scope of his afflictions—some massive form of arthritis, I presumed—were quite clear by the crookedness of his limbs. Was the hand that picked up the piece of cardboard to use as a fan… missing fingers?
“Here’s some water, gramps,” Walter said and brought him one of the tin cans. My angle showed me little, only Walter carefully tilting the can for him to drink out of. The over-loud chugging sound caused my brow to rise.
“Um, gramps,” Walter began. “There was this man, outside. He’s a friend of mom’s and his name is Foster Morley…”
The horrendously palsied figure seemed to lean up, and in doing so I saw a tragically unnatural curve to his spine. But it was Walter’s words that had caused him to lean closer.
“And-and… he gave me this,” the youth hesitated, then showed the ten-dollar bill. “To buy mom some flowers.”
The stepfather’s reaction to this information is something I’m sure I will never forget.
He lurched forward, deepening the arch to his back, shot out a hand that clearly was deformed, and then emitted a vocal objection in no language I’d ever heard: a high, almost bearing-like squeal underlain with suboctave grunts and what I can only call a mad tweaking, rising and lowering, and an accommodating sound that reminded me of something wet spattering somewhere.
The suddenness—and unearthliness—of the man’s vociferous objection affected me almost physically, akin to a ball bat across the chest. I lurched backward, yet my eyes remained on that partial window-view and all I can say about what I think I saw is this:
Something shot forward from the haggard mass of shadows that comprised this infirm man. What that something was I cannot accurately delimitate. It was either a length of rope, or a whip, flung forward with a clearly stated maliciousness toward the boy. That’s all I can say: it reminded me of a whip.
This whip, then, snapped out with a moist but resolute crack! and seemed to take the ten-dollar bill from Walter’s hand, then draw it back to the afflicted oldster.
An attendant gush of a mix of those dreadfully low suboctaves, and the squeal, and then that awful phlegmatic splatter followed this action, after which the boy, paling before my eyes, turned and dashed from the room.
A tremendous malady, indeed, had accursed this poor elderly man, not just in body but also in mind.
I could witness it no longer, and then I fled myself to the clearing behind the house, fairly bursting into sunlight and a flurry of butterflies, and ran outright until—half-crazed—I spotted the nature trail the boy had apprised me of.
Of congenital defects and progressive disease mechanisms I knew precious little, and though my sense of pity and empathy was sound, I had to forcibly banish the image of this demented and inauspicious man from my mind…
As I tramped down the lad’s path, I was scarcely aware of its features for several minutes. My heart seemed to hammer in the aftermath of my witness, and my breath grew short. Eventually I slowed to regain my senses, then stooped, hands on knees, to rest.
The rapid exodus from the maledict house left me in a dirt-scratch of a trail lined by man-tall grasses. Insects chirruped and the sun blazed.
It was the darkness of the huddled house, I thought, and the potency of suggestion that so grotesquely appended what I saw.
Of all people, I thought again of Cyrus Zalen and his all-too-true implications regarding my status in life. A rich pud. My unearned station of privilege had shielded me from such tragic realities heaped upon the less fortunate, and this, simply, wasn’t right. I needed to know these direful realities—and their consequences—to be the better man that I’m sure God wanted me to be. My empathy must not be staged, nor my pity manufactured. I fancied myself a philanthropist—a willful contributor to those who had sorely less than me.
I knew that I must contribute more, and more, too, than simply money.
Soft voices severed my thoughts. When I turned my head, a great glimmer flashed in my eyes; through the tall grass, I saw a modest lake full of floating sunlight. But the voices…
It was necessary to shield my eyes to annul the glare. There, sitting at a short pier’s end, were two women, one honey-blond and the other obsidian-haired. Both were naked, chatting animatedly as they rowed their feet in the water. I saw a small bottle serving as a buoy farther out in the lake.
The girls’ bare white backs gleamed in the sun, but the tranquil scene did not parallel the apparent mood of the coal-haired one, who snapped, “I just hate it, Cassandra! It sickens me—their condition, I mean. And I have to go again tonight. Oh, God, I dread it so much.”
“So you’re not in the way yet?” queried the other.
“No, I don’t think so. They make me go—every night—until they’re sure.” The girl seemed to hack. “And I have to be with several of them! One’s not enough! It’s got to be at least two each night, and I heard they’ve gotten two more. What’s that now, seven all together?”
“Six, I think. Remember, the one died, and that curly-haired man couldn’t… you know. You never know when one might not be any good all of a sudden. Sometimes they wind up like Paul.”
Paul! the name immediately struck me. A common name, yes, but could they be referring to Mary’s invalid brother?
“Well, shit!” exclaimed the black-haired waif with a surprising profanity. “One per night should be enough!”
“It’s like the doctor said, Monica. The more you do it with, the better chance of success…”
What on earth are they talking about? I wondered, puzzled. And… the doctor? Did they mean Dr. Anstruther?
“That’s why he tests them every so often,” the honey-blonde continued. “To make sure they haven’t lost their… I forgot the word. Portense? Er—no, potency!”
I stared at these strange words, my face lengthening.
“But they’re just so ugly like that!” the dark-haired one, Monica, nearly squealed in objection. “It gives me nightmares.”
The honey-blonde, Cassandra, took Monica’s hand to offer a consolation. “It’s like they say, you’ve got to get the right frame of mind. It’s not about pleasure, it’s about something much more important. To think like you’re thinking is to be selfish. And they have to be the way they are—for safety’s sake…”