“Davey said a lot of things,” Clayton replied crossly. “How about that time he needed that three hundred dollars.”
“Sure,” Ray snorted. “How can I forget when you remind me all the time. Sure he lied about it. Didn’t want to talk about it. Girlfriend. Abortion. Kind of thing happens to people.”
“If that’s really what it was,” Clay replied. “I never was so sure to believe either the first lie or the second.”
On that note, the ever reliable Richard walked through the door and before he even took his seat, he removed his battered fedora, straightened up his old dark purple tweed jacket, studied Clayton’s face with a serious look and said,
“Always believe the second lie. Second lie’s the one they’re gonna stick to, so you might as well accept it.”
Then, after a laugh far outsizing the humor of the statement, he coughed and sputtered and sat down in the door-side barber chair. It was Ray’s turn to do the shave. They liked to alternate customers, seeing as there were so few. They hardly ever had to work at the same time anymore. Ray got busy, spreading the cloak around Richard, fastening the collar, lathering the lather, soaking the towel in the warm water, picking out his razor. While he went about this business, Richard kept on talking.
“I always prefer to come up with a good lie to begin with” he informed them. “Then I never modify. Never modify. I come home late and I’ll tell Becky ‘I was at the circus and caught a ride on a tiger’. She won’t even bother to question my integrity, not after that. A man comes up with a good enough story, he don’t ever have to worry about changing it.”
“Something outrageous, huh,” muttered Ray, and it occurred to him that maybe all that stuff Davey said about digging his way out of the grave, but then he remembered the wound, and the smell, and the way that part of his cheek rubbed off. It gave him shivers to think of it, but also brought in the idea that he’d have to do something about the boy’s appearance. He was going to need some kind of make-up if he was ever to go out in the world again. You couldn’t go around like that, with the skin falling off your face in strips. And some kind of bandage to go around the waist. Yep, he was going to have to do a little shopping.
“Crazier the better,” Richard declared. “Why I’d tell my wife I was dead if I thought it would get me off the hook!”
“She might even make it so,” Clay chimed in with a chuckle.
“She might at that,” Richard agreed. It was all a bunch of talk, and everybody knew it. Becky, his wife, had once been Becky Jeffries — Clay’s big sister — and they’d had one of the happiest and most easy-going marriages anyone had ever known. Three kids, all grown by now, and two of them with kids of their own, happy little squatters, every one.
“Davey Connor showed up last night,” Clay told Richard, who glanced up at Ray. Ray was about to commence with the blade and merely nodded, casually.
“Been awhile, ain’t it?” Richard asked.
“Few years,” Ray said, and hushed the customer by bringing the razor to his face. Ray really didn’t want to talk about it much. He wanted to get things straight in his mind first. There was too much to think about and he wasn’t getting any good thinking done yet that morning. He kept up the small talk as best he could, assuring his friends that Davey was fine, nothing was wrong, that he’d come around to see them anytime now, that Ray was glad to have him, had given him the spare room for his own.
Topics soon turned to other matters, and after Richard had gone a few other customers appeared at sporadic intervals. The morning went by fairly quickly, and Ray knocked off at noon. By then he had already planned out his shopping expedition — the pharmacy, the thrift store, that should be enough. He moved slowly and considered his purchases carefully. Luckily it didn’t amount to much, less than twenty dollars for a used but not too shabby wardrobe, as well as the make-up and bandages. It was going to take a few meals out of his week but he figured that was unavoidable. The kid didn’t seem to have anybody else.
Four
Dave spent the day in the basement. For a long time he simply sat on the couch, staring at the small old television perched on its rickety plant stand. The room seemed fit for nothing; the dreariness of its darkness was matched by the ugliness of the furniture and the absence of anything of interest to look at. Above the couch there had been a ground level window at one time, but it had long since been filled in with cinder blocks and roughly painted over. The front wall was a garage door that would no longer open.
He could not clearly remember this room, although he must have seen it before. Somewhere in the back of his mind was the notion that there had been family gatherings here, dull holidays perhaps, with trays and paper plates and plastic cups. Now and then he heard the echoes of voices in his mind, which he linked to the idea of his mother and his father, whose names were…. Ray had just told him but now he couldn’t recall them. He tried harder, closing his eyes as if that would help, but only shadows came.
There was a flash of a scene with a bicycle and a man with a narrow brown tie. The face of the man was a blur but his voice was harsh and bitter. Another image came along with that, of long grass freshly cut and smelling like heaven. He concentrated but the memories were vague and came rarely. It was troubling. After awhile he stood up, approached the tv and pushed enough buttons until the thing came alive. The screen was small, perhaps eleven inches, and the display was very fuzzy but there were people on it, and voices, and Dave sat back to observe.
The people were sitting around a table and chatting, two men and three women discussing anonymous personal problems. Someone was too fat and didn’t like herself. Someone was afraid to tell somebody something. Another person had trouble with her teenage daughter. Now and then the audience was shown, a chorus of random people sitting in happy judgment. The stories were obscure to Dave, and he couldn’t follow the details. He noted that every one had something to complain about and was looking for reassurance. They relaxed when they got that.
The act of speaking drew his attention, and now that he was alone he felt more confident to give it a try. He wanted to say to the people on the television, ‘everything is going to be all right’, but all he could manage, at first, was to push out a sound.
‘Uh’.
That was progress. He had made the noise through his mouth, up from his throat. He repeated the steps he had taken until he could produce, as short bursts of exhalations a series of sounds. His body was struggling and the effort was intense. He felt, for the first time since awakening, some weariness, but that faded when he made the discovery of closing his lips while forcing out the noise, making the “p” sound.
He sounded like an infant babbling but as he sat observing the people on the tv he noticed the different sounds they were making and watched their lips move and after an hour or so was able to make words come out that sounded close to what they should, and this gave him a good feeling. The exercise of speaking was also teaching the muscles around his mouth how to move again. He could change the expression on his face a little bit more. Not much, but it was something. When he saw Ray again, he would be able to communicate better.
Ray came home in the middle of the afternoon, bearing his bundles, which he proudly unpacked in the downstairs room, handing each item over to Dave while explaining its purpose and his reasoning. He helped bandage up the wound, and showed Dave how to put the clothes on. He applied a little of the make-up to Dave’s cheek and all the while Dave managed to grunt and make sounds and even a few words, such as “k” for okay, “ga” for “got it,” and “no” for “no” in response to Ray’s questions about food and water and whether he wanted any.