Orson Scott Card's InterGalactic Medicine Show (20 page)

Another eviction
notice. Not really a notice, though—a note. Just a couple of lines scrawled out in Ernesto’s handwriting, amounting to little more than “Hey, Mr. Rick Manchester, you’re a filthy, lazy, S.O.B., get out in four days.” That’s all it was. A note and a signature, Ernesto Ruiz Montalvo. The fourth this month, counting down the days. And then, he’d have to abandon Tommy. He’d have to leave his little son here alone.

Rick’s fingers shook as he closed the front door. He needed a drink, but last night’s bottle was half gone. If he drank it now, he’d have nothing left after he visited Tommy. Rick brushed his hands over his beard and stood and trembled at the weight of the eviction note in his hand until he let it fall to the floor. Upstairs, that’s where he had to go now. Tommy would have to see him now, wouldn’t he? Because it was all about to end. Everything was about to be torn to pieces by Ernesto Ruiz Montalvo and his damn eviction notes.

He touched the wall reverently as he made his way up the stairs. Even though he’d put plaster over every spot, he knew right where to lay the tips of his fingers. This was where Tommy’s head hit the wall. This was where his
Dukes of Hazzard
watch tore into the wallpaper. This was where Rick picked his little son up by the neck and threw him down the stairs. The top step. It squeaked today just as loudly as it had fifteen years ago. In four days, he’d never be allowed to touch these walls again. Never hear the squeak of the step that warned him too late to save Tommy.

The bedroom. He’d had his last dream here. The very last one. Sergeant Davies screaming in the rain while men were flashed into gore by Vietnamese bullets, and poor, scrawny Private Rick Manchester curled up under a bush, too scared to scream or run, and he knew it was a dream because Sergeant Davies had been killed by a grenade outside Dong Hoi, but here he was impaled on a stake, and Timmons and Rosas were trying to put their guts back in their stomachs, but in that other Vietnam, that
real
Vietnam, they had been crushed underneath a jeep that flipped, and all their blood was running down toward him in the rain, and it was pooling at his feet, and it hissed and something dark and cold as iron rose up from out of it, but that never happened in the
real
Vietnam, and this thing coming out of their blood and pain, it was worse than war and Hell, and if it touched him, Rick knew he’d spend all his soul’s days devoted to it, and then a hand on his neck, a little hand like Charlie’s hands were, and now he screamed at last, and leaped on his attacker, strangling him like he was about to be strangled, only he realized too late the hand was soft and the fingers weren’t just little, they were tiny, and the step squeaked, and Marie screamed and Sergeant Davies screamed and little Tommy opened his mouth but didn’t make a sound just like Private Rick Manchester. But the thing in the pool of blood laughed.

No more dreams. Not even on the lonely, angry nights in the mental hospital. Not even when they put him on suicide watch and doped him up so much he couldn’t do anything else but sleep.

Rick crossed the room to the dumbwaiter. It had been here when he and Marie had first rented the place. When Tommy had been a baby, they’d put him on the little sliding tray, and haul him up and down, up and down…it was the only way, sometimes, to get him to sleep. It became their favorite indoor game. Five years, he’d hauled Tommy up and down. Five years, Tommy’s laughter echoed up the chute while Rick’s laughter chased him down. Then the welding accident, the morphine, the flashbacks…In one year, it was all gone. Tommy, Marie, life—gone like an echo with no one to hear it.

The door to the dumbwaiter was about at waist level. Rick slid it open. It was barely big enough for him to fit his shoulders through. That was fine—Rick had learned he didn’t have to even put his shoulders through, just his face. Close eyes, insert head, and hold breath: a little safety drill. He waited a moment, and then opened his eyes.

All the world spun and swirled like a million dark butterflies blown by a breeze into Rick’s face.

He was somewhere else. It was nighttime, and the moon was big and silver in the sky, brighter than it ever was in any sky Rick had seen. He was in a wheat field, and a breeze made the stalks dance softly. There was no eviction notice here, no Ernesto Ruiz Montalvo. Just the moon, the wheat, the breeze.

And Tommy.

He was sitting up on a little rise. Rick could see his red overalls. He pushed away the desire to run to his son—just moved forward easy through the wheat, his back straight. Slow and calm and maybe this time Tommy would stay. Maybe he’d let Rick hold him again. Maybe they could sit down together on that little rise, and Rick could smell him, and wrap his arms around him and hug him, and feel the smoothness of that little six-year-old face against his grizzled cheek.

He was walking too quickly. Tommy saw him coming and jumped up. His eyes were wide and dark, as black as the starless sky. He turned and ran. Rick could see his head just over the bobbing wheat, a loose tangle of brown curls.

“Tommy! Tommy, please stop! Stop!”

He had to catch him this time. He had to make Tommy understand that this was the end. So Rick ran, too, following Tommy under the bright moon, through the whispering, rushing wheat and the warm breeze. He tried to make it a game—Tommy wasn’t really terrified of him. This was play. A daddy and his boy playing tag. But the breeze carried Tommy’s sobbing back to his ears.

“Go away!” Tommy screamed when Rick was close enough to put his hand out, just an inch from Tommy’s bright red overalls. “Go away!”

And then Rick tripped over nothing he could see. He fell, and fell, and fell, until he was back in the bedroom, looking down the dark chute.

Rick stood there numbly, willing the wheat field back. It wouldn’t come. It never did. Tommy had told him to go away, and so he did, and he couldn’t come back until tomorrow. Tomorrow…maybe tomorrow Tommy would listen to him.

But he wouldn’t. Rick knew it. Tommy hadn’t listened the first day Rick had put his head into the chute, looking to see why the tray had stuck. He had gone back every day since then, even when he was bone tired from medication and liquor and work, even when he knew all he could do was watch his son run off into the wheat field.

Tommy never listened.

Ernesto was
at the front door. Rick could hear him pounding and shouting his name. Little rat’s key didn’t work, now, did it? Must have something to do with the new lock Rick had installed after getting the last eviction note. Rick lay on the nappy old couch in the living room, and smiled, listening to Ernesto. Let him try the back door, too. Let him go on back there and see how Rick had fixed it, too. Let him bang away, and scream and shout.

Rick got up to get a drink of water—and the front door swung inward, without even making a squeak. Ernesto looked in at Rick, surprised.

“Hi, Ernesto,” Rick managed slowly. How had the door been opened? There was someone else standing behind the Mexican, someone tall and broad shouldered, with graying hair. The stranger had a face like a retired army general. Apple pie and industry and discipline all rolled into one.

Ernesto came in. “Took you long enough to open the door.”

Rick shrugged. “I was asleep.”

“You was drunk. It’s eleven o’clock, man. Why ain’t you working?”

“I don’t see the point, Ernesto. You’re evicting me, remember? I’ve got nothing to work for now, since I don’t have to pay rent.” Mr. Army General was still standing outside. “Come in if you’re coming in, mister. Don’t just stand there with the door open—you’ll let the flies in.”

“You invite him in, but not me, Rick? After all I’ve done for you?”

Ernesto was in his face now. Rick backed off a bit. “He’s not evicting me.”

Mr. Army General came in and closed the door softly. When he moved up, Ernesto moved aside. Like he was obeying an unspoken order. Mr. Army General stuck out a hand. “Quincy Umble, Mr. Manchester.”

Rick took his hand slowly. Quincy Umble had hands as cool as iron. “Rick. Just Rick.”

“Rick.” Quincy Umble nodded. “I am going to be purchasing this home from Mr. Montalvo.”

Ernesto guffawed. “See? He is evicting you. In a way.”

Rick sagged away. “Oh.”

Quincy Umble did not look at Ernesto. “I’d like to take a look around your home, Rick. Ernesto, I don’t think you need to stay—why don’t you go get the car started up? I won’t be long.”

And just like that, not a word spoken back, Ernesto left them alone. Rick watched him go. He turned to look at Quincy Umble, and his breath caught in his throat. Quincy Umble’s eyes were as large as moons, as dark as a starless night sky. And they were hungry.

“So,” Quincy Umble said. “Rick. Show me around.”

He shouldn’t do it. He didn’t want to do it. Men with hunger like that in their eyes—Rick knew that look. Like some of the soldiers he’d known, looking at the pretty young Vietnamese girls and licking their lips. Like the child molesters he’d seen in the hospital. Like the kids he’d seen in some alleyways, hunkered over needles and syringes. Hunger that doesn’t ever, ever die, and here it was right in his own home, asking him to show it around. It had no place here.

“I don’t want to,” Rick said. His voice got swallowed up in those black eyes.

Quincy Umble smiled, showing his white, even teeth. He clapped Rick on the shoulder. “I understand perfectly. But you should. Be a good host. Show me around.”

Quincy Umble’s hand was on his shoulder still. Rick felt his head getting light. “This is the kitchen,” he said, pointing. “And, uh, this is the living room. I had to sell my TV. You know, to, uh, buy food.”

“I see. I like the pyramid of liquor bottles that has taken its place.”

“Uh, yeah. See, I know I have a problem. I do. I’ve been to AA, you know.”

“I can imagine. Won’t you show me upstairs?”

Rick led him upstairs. Quincy Umble’s arm never left his shoulder. Rick felt his arms twitching, wanting to touch the sacred places he’d covered with plaster. But he couldn’t. Not with Quincy Umble watching. Not with Quincy Umble’s arm on his shoulder.

They came to the bedroom. “Exquisite,” Quincy Umble said, and his black eyes were on the dumbwaiter. “Beautiful.” He swallowed, and Rick watched his Adam’s apple bob up, down, up. He whispered, “Sweet.”

Quincy Umble let him go, and Rick felt all strength ebb right out of his body. Quincy Umble crossed over to the dumbwaiter, laid his hands on the door, and opened it slowly. Tenderly. But Rick knew his eyes were hungry, and they were peering down the chute.

“Beautiful boy,” Quincy Umble muttered. “So tragic. So sad.”

“Get away from him!” Rick hauled himself to his feet, lurching against the wall until he stood at the dumbwaiter. “Get away!”

He struck at Quincy Umble, knocking him away from the dumbwaiter. Was Tommy all right? What had Quincy Umble done? How had he known about the dumbwaiter?

Quincy Umble straightened himself, and those terrible black eyes fixed themselves on Rick. He didn’t say a word. But suddenly, his hand was around Rick’s throat, squeezing, until it felt like his eyes were going to burst out of their sockets. No matter how hard he flailed and beat at Quincy Umble, he couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t get free.

The top stair was squeaking.

“Irony,” Quincy Umble said. Then he heaved Rick through the air.

Rick’s head cracked against the wall as he fell. He crumbled into a heap at the bottom of the stairs. Everything was a madness of rushing blood and spinning lights. He tried to see the steps—they were right in front of him, they had to be. He had to get up there, and get that
thing
away from the dumbwaiter, away from Tommy. Rick’s fingers scrabbled at the edge of the step, but he was too weak to push himself up.

The sound of footsteps coming down. Quincy Umble wasn’t going after Tommy right now—Rick felt big hands close around his arms and drag him into the living room. Then, a breath on his eyes, as damp as November rain, and frigid. Rick felt something snap together in his skull, and the pounding blood stopped, and the lights stopped spinning. Quincy Umble let him fall to the floor, then sat heavily on his chest, straddling him so his knees held Rick’s arms pinned to the floor.

“Get off of me,” Rick grunted.

Quincy Umble pulled something out of his jacket. It looked at first like an ugly stone knife, its edges caked with blood; but as Quincy Umble turned it, Rick saw that it was a long, thick spike, its head worn from being hammered; but at last he saw,
really
saw, what it was: a combat knife. One edge keen and honed, the other serrated. Quincy Umble lowered the knife to Rick’s temple and made a quick little
snick
! Rick felt tufts of his beard fall away onto his ear.

“What do you want?” Rick demanded. “Why are you doing this to me?”

Quincy Umble did not look at him.
Snick, snick!
More of his beard fell away. “I know you, Richard Manchester. I’ve known you since…Vietnam. Yes. You got away from me for a bit when you married Marie, but I found you again. When you burned your hands, I found you.” His voice was low, teasing. Soft. The knife scraped against Rick’s face. “When you became addicted to morphine, how delicious, I knew how things would end. I was with you when you had your last dream, when you lifted poor little Tommy and threw his body down the stairs. I was with you through your divorce, through your trial, when despite your best efforts, they found you
not guilty
. I stayed close to you every night in the asylum. I was with you when you visited Tommy’s grave, and Marie and her new husband found you and she slapped you, and he kicked you in the crotch. I knew you’d come back to this house. I knew you’d find a way to pull Tommy back to you. I knew your misery would bring you to him, and him to you. It’s all about misery, Rick. You understand
that,
don’t you? Misery can do terrible, terrible things. People forget what misery can do. I do not. I know all the wounds, all the depth, all the ache of your misery. It is…sweet to me, Rick.