Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet No. 13 Read online

  Gabe had gotten his voice back now, although it was ragged and slid between anger and grief two or three times a word. “They put him in that thing. They scraped him up off the pavement and put him in that awful thing. They never asked us. They just slapped Silas into their contraption and turned him to sludge, while they sent that golem to some New York City doctors.” He grabbed hold of Jack's collar, and Jack, God bless the man, let him. “Why didn't they ask us, Jack? We're the boy's parents. Why?"

  "You know why, Gabe. There wasn't time. He would have died."

  "He did die."

  "You know that isn't true."

  Silas stood beside me on our porch watching the whole thing. Apollo was there too. Probably I should have taken them inside and spared them such grown-up agonies, but I was riveted to the goings-on, and I hardly noticed the kids, shame to say, until Silas piped up: “Daddy! I'm right here!"

  Gabe turned to stare at the boy. I've never seen such grief in a human face. Then he looked away again. He let go of Jack's shirt. He took his wife by the elbow and he stepped back inside his house. He shut the door in Jack's face. The lock clicked. Inside, Sarah wailed.

  Jack stood still a minute and stared at his shoes. His nostrils were big as the lip of a boogie bottle. He breathed so hard I thought I'd see steam come out of his ears. He snapped his head toward Silas. “You won't find yourself out in the yard, so you can stop looking. There's nothing there but bigwig sludge. County Emergency doesn't contract with me. But I know where they put it, Silas.” He flashed me one of his inscrutable looks, a combination of Richard Nixon, Jack the Ripper, and the Easter Bunny. Then he did one of those things I positively hate in men, a tough-guy movie thing, where they look at one person while they're talking to another. His eyes were on me, but he said, “And you know what, Silas? I'm going to go get it for you. Today."

  I rolled my eyes. Honestly, sometimes, I don't know why I love that man like I do.

  "Breakfast, boys.” I scooted the kids into the house and away from all that monkeyshines. We'd had enough sorrows for one day, and the day hadn't even begun by any civilized person's clock. “Kukla pudding with toasted boogie loaf."

  "Yummilicious,” was Apollo's answer. Silas wiped his eyes with a pajama sleeve and followed us in, but he kept looking back at my Jack. And I thought I saw that rascal husband of mine wink at him and nod.

  * * * *

  We did not see Jack for the rest of the day. I stewed. He had no right to build up the boy's hopes that way. And if he succeeded, then what? I doubted that Jack had thought it out that far. He was just like a twelve-year-old sometimes, was my thought. The Tyvils would rejoice over their canned sludge son and keep the real one out in the cold. For Silas, nothing would change.

  The boys laid low. “Keep close to Silas today,” I told my Apollo. “Cheer him up. Split boogies, if you like. He's had a hard morning."

  Wouldn't you know it, at ten-fifteen at night, under a full Kukla Boogie Moon, when the boys were asleep in bed and I was lying between my sheets tight as a shook stoppered boogie, thinking of devastating things to say to my Jack whenever in the land of Goshen he decided to make his appearance, up he clunks and bang! into the bedroom with a gallon gas can in his hands.

  "Don't tell me . . .” I said.

  "I won't,” he said, “but go get the boys dressed, if you please, hon, and meet me out on Gabe and Sarah's porch in fifteen minutes. I just lugged this thing up here to give you a little motivation. This is the genuine article. This is going to be a red-letter day for the Tyvils, and no mistake."

  "But . . ."

  The bum kissed me on the mouth and skedaddled.

  When the boys and I got to Gabe and Sarah's porch, Jack was already in the middle of an argument with them.

  "It's not,” they said.

  "It is,” Jack said.

  "For one thing,” Gabe said, as the three of us mounted his porch, “nobody, not even a child, could have fit in that can you're carrying, and everybody knows that they seal up the remains in the same thingo they supposedly ship them from."

  "Not at Ontario County Emergency, they don't. That's what I'm telling you, Gabe. That's what I found out. That's why it was so hard to locate this, well, your son Silas's soul. They don't have the moolah over at County to use a new booth for every medical teleport. They transfer the, uh, dead souls to these urns,"—is what Jack called his gas can—"and then they throw them into a bin in the basement of the Albion Town Hall along with a bunch of old real estate records, styrofoam dishware, and contraband being held for exhibit at trial."

  Sarah covered her mouth. “That is where they were holding our Silas?"

  "I'm sorry to have to say so, Sarah."

  Gabe stared my Jack in the face to see if he would back down. But it was Gabe who backed down at last. “Well, I would never have believed it.” He laid his hands on the gas can with something like reverence. “So we are to be allowed to properly honor our poor dead son after all. Thank the Lord."

  He made to take the can from Jack, but Jack held tight. “Not so fast.” He looked back at us three huddled behind him in our half-buttoned clothes. “Silas, come here."

  "Yes, Mr. Earl?"

  "Are you thirsty, boy?"

  "Wait a minute,” Gabe tried to say.

  But Jack cut him off. He had screwed open the gas can. “Then drink this."

  Gabe bolted forward, but Jack got in his way. It didn't take much to restrain him, and I figured that his heart must not have been in it. Silas took the gas can and tilted it to his lips. You have to hand it to that boy. He didn't stop until the can was empty. He set the thing down with a clang, wiped his mouth with his sleeve, and panted.

  For a full minute, nobody on that porch had an inkling what to do.

  Then Sarah lurched toward Silas and hugged him like a cold boogie on a hot day. She covered that boy with kisses. “Silas, darling, you've got your soul back.” Except for Silas's sobbing and Sarah's endearments, that porch was absolutely silent. Finally Sarah Tyvil looked up at her husband. “Hasn't he, dear? Hasn't he got his soul back?"

  Gabe looked at his wife with his mouth open and nothing coming out of it. He looked at his son. He looked at Jack. Then he looked at me, and what could I do? I nodded. I like to think it was my nod that restored his last missing marble. “Yes, he does. Indeed, he does. In all its glory. Welcome home, Silas.” And the three of them fell together like—well, they just fell together, that's all. And they stayed that way for a good long time.

  We Earls stole back to our own house. I put Apollo to bed. He didn't want to, he didn't want to, and out he went like a light as soon as the pillow was plumped. Twelve-year-olds! That's pretty much all I wanted to do as well. There had been too many early mornings and late nights lately. I sat myself down on the glider out back just to take a load off and gaze at the Kukla Boogie Moon. I could hear Gabe and Sarah through an open window kissing their boy goodnight, and the last thing I saw before my eyes sort of closed themselves was the Tyvils’ lights turning off.

  I must have drifted off then, because the next thing I knew, Jack's arm was around me. I smiled and snuggled against the hollow of his shoulder.

  "Hey,” says he, “I found us a buyer for the sludge. I ran into some KB suits at the county offices in Albion. Seems KB Corporate has had a little epiphany. They're going all over Kingdom Come buying up people's TP sludge and trying to get back their own that they farmed out to fellows like me. I got a damn good price out of them, dearie dear. What a howler. I made money off KB in both directions. This'll buy us some time on Easy Street whilst I think up a new idea—you gonna throw your arms around me and kiss me now or what?"

  "Hold on. Whatever are the KB folks going to do with all that sludge?"

  "Oh, I don't know,” he said, and that mischievous curl came into his voice. “This and that."

  "Well,” I said, “thank God they missed a can."

  "How do you mean?"

  "I mean from the county offices."

&n
bsp; "Oh, the county didn't have anything to sell them. The county streams their TP sludge into the Erie Canal—under covers, of course, because they're not supposed to dump it like that."

  "But what about Silas's soul?"

  "Oh, yes, that. Well, you know, hon, I was never too strong on my metaphysics. But there's one thing I believe in."

  "Oh, and what would that be?"

  The rascal started in to singing:

  * * * *

  I believe in Kukla Boogie Moon.

  It won't fade soon—

  That's like our love.

  * * * *

  He tried to kiss me, but I pushed him away. “You mean it was Kuke that Silas drank out of that gas can?"

  "Wait right here.” He ran into the house and came out with an open bottle of Kukla Boogie. “Try this."

  "Jack Earl, I'm too tired for this sort of goings on. For pity's sake, I've had Kukla Boogie before. I know what it tastes like."

  "But, honey, this is from a brand new batch. Those suits gave me a sample or two. Look here.” So he showed me the label. It was an ordinary Kukla Boogie label with the KB logo just like it is up there on the moon, only there was an extra little bit of writing underneath. It said:

  * * * *

  New and Improved Kukla Boogie—

  Now with a SECRET INGREDIENT

  that will make you say:

  "KUKLA BOOGIE: The Stuff of Life!"

  * * * *

  When I stopped laughing, I kissed the joker. And when I stopped kissing, I had a long draft of new improved Kukla Boogie.

  It was yummilicious.

  * * * *

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  Lunar Fate

  Mario Milosevic

  * * * *

  I remembered when the moon will fall

  quietly tracking across the sky

  in its accustomed arc

  then one tip of its crescent

  snagging on a branch

  of a hillside tree

  and just like that

  the inspiration for poets

  and the engine of tides

  will have been moored

  on the horizon's edge

  where it will sway in the breeze

  like a great slow balloon

  and children will gather round

  with hands outstretched

  to a clever entrepreneur

  who will have secured the right

  to cut up the moon into small pieces

  and sell them for a dollar each

  to the children who will mistake them

  for candy at first

  then collect and trade

  pieces of the moon

  like they were baseball cards

  until one day all those pieces

  will end up

  in attics and the backs of closets,

  forgotten artifacts of childhood.

  * * * *

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  The Changeling

  Leslie What

  My boyfriend's nickname was Spot because of his condition—vitiligo—which bleached out pigment from his dark skin and left behind erratic white patches that made no sense. He'd always hated the nickname, and I thought a better one was “Domino.” Too bad the people who cared about such things were never the ones who got to choose their friends’ nicknames. Instead I used his real name, Steve.

  I didn't even know Steve had any spots until I saw him without clothes, which wasn't until our fourth date. By then I was in love and surface imperfections didn't matter. I'd never been with a black guy; for all I knew, spots were normal. Steve had been with white women but he was polite and didn't compare, even when asked. Steve told me his white spots complemented my freckles. We both believed our differences were no big deal.

  Last Monday, I threw up on the futon and had to tell him I was pregnant. Fourteen weeks, by calendar count. I wiped the sheets but one stain was stubborn and just spread out more, no matter how hard I scrubbed.

  "Forget it,” Steve said. “Want coffee?"

  "Sure,” I said. I threw that up too.

  "Anyway, you aren't supposed to drink coffee,” Steve said. He rubbed my belly to help my stomach settle.

  "I think you mean alcohol,” I said. I wasn't ready to give up coffee.

  Steve was wearing red shorts and a white terry robe belted at the waist. His chest was beeswax smooth and he looked boxer strong and handsome. I pretended the white spots on his chest weren't there. “What do you want to do?” Steve said.

  I didn't know. “Do you love me enough to get married?” I asked.

  "I don't know. Do you love me that much?"

  The day before, I would have said yes. I said yes anyway.

  "Then let's get married,” he said. “For the baby."

  "For the baby,” I said.

  We got dressed and went to work. Steve managed World CD and I clerked at U.S. Jeans.

  When I called my mother on my break, she said, “Get an abortion."

  "It's one thing to have sex with one, but I don't think I could ever love the child,” Mom said. “Neither black nor white. Unfair to give a child problems to begin with."

  I could not believe she would say that. I yelled, said she was prejudiced, and hung up the phone. It was weird because Steve's parents felt the same about me as Mom did about Steve.

  I decided to make Steve tell them the news.

  The rest of the day was customer hell. At closing, the register was short sixteen dollars. When I came home, Steve told me to sit and rest. He wouldn't let me help make dinner.

  I worried I was making a mistake. Every baby deserved to be loved, especially mine. “Maybe we shouldn't get married,” I said. “Maybe getting married is for the wrong reasons."

  "You aren't thinking of abortion?” he said. “Because I think that's murder."

  "No,” I said, even though I wasn't sure I wanted a baby.

  "Good,” said Steve. “I mean, it's your body. But it is half my baby."

  That night I dreamt of babies half black and half white, split midway down the centers like jester hats.

  In the morning we had sex and it was good. After, Steve held me and tenderly rubbed my belly. I loved almost everything about him: the way he talked, his thoughtfulness, the CD art hanging on his walls, the way he looked in clothes, and the way he felt out of them. I loved his body and how his skin felt waxy like polished jade, except for those bleached spots, which were rough to the touch and didn't look like they belonged on him. I loved how he took the lumpy side of the futon and gave me the better half.

  "How about some green tea?” he said.

  "In a bit,” I answered.

  My stomach felt calm so long as I didn't stand up. Too bad I had to work. Clearance sale today, but at least the busy days passed faster.

  I started to cry without a reason.

  Steve whispered, “It'll be okay, baby."

  By baby he meant me and not the baby.

  There was a white spot near his navel and I touched it. My fingers traced the perimeter and then sneaked inside to explore the white circle. It felt bumpy and abnormal and weird. “Will they ever come out?” I asked. “The spots?"

  "This is who I am,” Steve said, sounding grouchy. “Get used to it."

  "I will,” I said. “I am. I'm sorry."

  Steve said, “I forgive you. Hey, I got the name of a doctor. We're gonna need prenatal care."

  "Oh, yeah,” I said. The baby. I wanted my prenatal care from a kit, like the pregnancy test. I didn't want strangers looking into places I couldn't see for myself.

  I propped up on my side and stared at Steve and pictured him as a father and not a lover. There was something wrong with the picture. He looked the same. Whereas I would soon look fatter.

  I let Steve shower first so I could lie still as long as possible. I stared at my belly to see if I was showing, but couldn't tell. I wouldn't have known I was pregnant if my boobs weren't sore and my periods hadn't stopped and I
didn't feel like throwing up and if all three home pregnancy tests hadn't been positive. Maybe Steve's doctor would order a sophisticated test that instead proved I had tumors.

  I wanted to have tumors. It would have been so much easier to deal with.

  I showered and dressed in jeans and a white tee shirt. Steve brought me saltines and I ate them and sipped tea and managed to keep both down. I rode the bus to work, standing to give my seat to a woman with a tiny baby. The woman had caught me staring, so I felt I should say something. I said, “Isn't it cute!” even though it wasn't.

  Customers lined up half an hour before we opened. My manager said, “Just keep smiling,” when one pounded on the windows, pointed to her watch, and mouthed something nasty. The morning passed sunrise quick. The starchy sizing scent of new clothes made me sick and I threw up twice. On my lunch break, I made the doctor's appointment. The chatty receptionist said the doctor was white but from South Africa. I felt glad, then guilty for feeling glad, and hung up to look through the phone book for a doctor who was black. None of the ads had pictures, except of the chiropractors, so I ended up staying with the first guy.

  On the bus home, I gave up my seat to a retarded girl who might have been pregnant or just fat. Either way, people looked angry with her. Someone said, “People like that shouldn't have children."

  That pissed me off. I said, “Don't be so judgmental!” Then I decided that the retarded girl was just fat, and I got mad at her, too.

  Steve was away at practice; he played bass in an alternative rock band. I felt trapped in a mood where nothing held my attention and I kept flipping channels with the remote. I couldn't commit to a television show. Was I crazy to think I could commit to a husband and a baby? Eventually, the batteries died; I solved that by sitting close enough to the TV to change channels with my feet.

  My mom called.

  "Oh,” I said. “It's you."

  "Is something wrong?” she asked and I said no because really, when you thought about it, there wasn't. I was in love. I was pregnant. Didn't everyone want to get married and have a baby?

  "I was a bit harsh,” she said. “About the baby. I'm sure I'll come to accept it,” she said. “Things sometimes take a while to get used to."