Simple Things Read online

  “I’m guessing the new speaker didn’t do the trick,” sighed Joe.

  Pat gave him a cold look and shook his head. “Let’s get this chump out onto the street, then I want that helicopter in the workshop and fixed tonight!”

  ***

  After the fairgrounds closed for the night, Pat stalked over to Joe’s workshop, still fuming about the incident with the giant. Inside, he found Joe and his young daughter; she in tears and Joe white-faced.

  “What’s up?” Pat asked in surprise.

  “I did a thorough check and couldn’t hear anything from the speaker I replaced this morning. I was at a loss but then I remembered that kids can hear many frequencies that adults simply can’t hear. So, I got Aimee out of bed to have a listen,” said Joe with unease. “She listened, and heard lots.”

  “Lots of what?” demanded Pat, slightly taken aback.

  Joe shook his head, not wanting to repeat what Aimee had said.

  “Did you hear anything, Joe?”

  “No,” muttered Joe. “Only Aimee can hear it.”

  “Is it whispering now, Aimee?” Pat asked in what he thought was his most child-friendly voice.

  The eight-year-old shook her head and continued crying.

  “You have to put two quarters in it,” explained Joe.

  “What?”

  “It only works if you put two quarters in it,” Joe repeated.

  Pat fished in his grubby trouser pockets for some change amongst the lint and grit.

  “I don’t want to hear no more!” Aimee blubbered. “It’s horrible and disgusting and it’s telling all sorts of lies about me.”

  Pat frowned. A glance at Aimee showed him how scared and frightened the child really was. He tried to give her a smile instead but failed miserably.

  “Just one more time, for Uncle Pat? I want you to tell me what it’s saying. You can have as much candy-floss as you can eat tomorrow, I promise.”

  Aimee looked questioningly up at her father.

  “Only if you want to, sweetie,” Joe answered.

  “Just one more time,” Aimee said unhappily.

  Pat gave the two quarters to Joe and moved to the far side of the helicopter to stick his head under the smeared Perspex canopy. Aimee went to the side where her father was but refused to climb in. Instead, she leant on the blue fuselage and inclined her head towards the speaker.

  “Put the quarters in, Joe,” ordered Pat.

  Joe slipped in the two quarters and the helicopter gave a sudden slight jerk. The lights on the top and the tail started to flash rhythmically and then the fuselage started to rock jerkily back and forth. Seeing a look of horror on the girl’s face, Pat stuck his head right next to the speaker but could hear only the chopping sound of the rotor.

  “What’s it saying?” Pat asked.

  “It’s using the F and the C word,” Aimee moaned.

  Pat again crammed his head inside the cockpit whilst Joe ducked down to the stand but neither could hear a voice.

  “What is it saying exactly?” pushed Pat.

  “It’s saying my mum was a dirty whore and both you and dad used to sleep with her,” Aimee uttered through floods of tears.

  Joe grabbed the girl and bungled her away from the ride, shielding her ears to stop her from hearing more. Pat looked up in stunned surprise and then moved quickly towards the power cord. He yanked it hard out of the socket. The lights stopped flashing and the ride jerked to a grinding halt, leaving the small workshop in silence broken only by Aimee’s sobs.

  “How did it…” Joe uttered in shock, cutting himself off before completing the sentence.

  Pat shook his head, red-faced with anger. “Get Aimee to bed, Joe. I’ll deal with this son-of-a bitch!”

  He waited until Joe ushered the sobbing Aimee out the side door of the trailer, which slammed noisily shut behind them. Thoughts of the past raced through Pat’s head, thoughts he had long since banished and that had no right to be cruelly resurrected. He had no idea what was happening. Whatever it was, it had something to do with the child’s ride he had bought from the bankrupt Panelli Brothers carnival. A large wrench lay on the oily workbench behind him and he picked it up, the weight feeling good in his hands. Unsure of his next move, he advanced slowly towards the blue helicopter wondering how best he could wreck it. As he raised the heavy wrench, all the lights lit and started to flash gaily followed by the motor jerking to life.

  “What the..!” Pat uttered, taking an involuntary step backwards.

  He turned towards the power cable, but saw it remained disconnected to the power socket. Thinking that he must have pulled the wrong cord, he followed it back from the plug but quickly saw it was the only cable leading to the ride. Confused, he skirted around the ride but saw no other cable. Rides such as this never had any battery backup and there was no access panel in the stand to tell him any different. He walked back to the power cord and bent to pick it up. As he grasped the cable, a blinding flash shot up his arm and he was transfixed by a vicious arc of raw electricity. Sparks shot from his eyes and his sleeve nearest the cable caught fire as his body danced involuntarily to the tune of the huge current. After a moment, the power cut and Pat’s charred body dropped heavily to the grimy wood floor. The laughing from the speaker was loud enough to be heard by adults and children alike.

  Our next item for your consideration is this beautiful crystal decanter. Careful now before you uncork it. Let us just say that once it’s uncorked, you will never again worry about thirst.

  This one-of-a-kind item was given to us by award-winning author, Martin Reaves of Northern California. He has written a host of short stories, plays, and dramatic sketches, as well as four novels.

  MADNESS, DECANTED

  Martin Reaves

  “CLOSE the door, quickly…please.”

  The words seemed to hang in the dank air of the long, darkened entryway with that last entreaty—please—a sibilant echo of despair.

  It was Poppa’s voice. And it wasn’t.

  Archie hesitated, not sure why, other than a feeling that he would be safer outside, though this stretch of Hell’s Kitchen at night was by no means a safe place to be. He took a breath and shook himself.

  Ridiculous. He’s an old man.

  But it really had nothing to do with a fear of his grandfather. It was that he’d felt something was wrong the moment he touched the outside doorknob of the old brownstone. For the briefest of moments, as his hand closed on the knob, his mind flashed with an image of Poppa dead, and not of natural causes.

  He took another breath, held it, then closed the door behind him, the soft click of the latch acting as a thrown light switch, cutting off what meager illumination the streetlamp had provided.

  “Poppa?”

  Archie’s voice seemed to go no further than his own ears. But that could only be imagination. As a borderline claustrophobic, it was simply the sudden darkness that gave the impression of thickened air, of walls slowly compressing around him, ceiling and floor compacting, some unseen pressure closing around his chest and squeezing...

  His chest began to heave, his pulse accelerating as fingers of anxiety plucked at him, raking at his bones, squeezing his lungs. He reached behind him for the safety of the doorknob, where one twist would release him back into the world, back into light and air and sanity.

  “Archie.”

  Poppa’s voice again, more familiar this time, more him. And now Archie could see a faint glow ahead on the left, far down the entry hall. That tiny glow lent perspective to the hall, pushed the walls and ceiling back where they belonged.

  His pulse slowed, hand released the cool reassurance of the doorknob. He began to shuffle forward, slowly, giving his eyes time to adjust.

  It’s too long, he thought, trying to reconcile the distance from the front door to the candle flicker ahead. The hallway…was it this long before?

  It had been months since Archie visited his grandfather in the ancient brownstone. Poppa wasn’t the most agr
eeable of men, even at the best of times, and the past few years had seen few pleasant days for their family. After a long and agonizing bout with cancer, Poppa’s wife was the first to go, followed in quick succession by Poppa’s two ancient mutts. Most recent was Poppa’s only daughter Janice, Archie’s mother. Also cancer; a fast-moving melanoma that spread and ate her up in the span of a few months.

  Archie felt well rid of the horrible woman—she was vicious in ways that never made any sense to Archie, nearly sociopathic in her spiteful treatment of others. “She’s a taker,” Archie’s father had said, as he lay on his own death bed nearly three years ago. “She’s mean clear through,” he’d said, “and I can’t for the life of me remember why I thought to marry her.” And then, as he was slipping further into narcotic slumber, his father’s eyes had fluttered open and fixed on Archie. “Be careful, son.”

  Archie never fully understood that final warning—he stayed away from his mother when possible, and she seemed just as happy to pretend he didn’t exist. Except for one odd morning at the breakfast table when she was suddenly standing over him, staring at him as he ate. “He has money, you know,” she said, and it was only much later when he understood she was talking about Poppa. And there had almost been a note of invitation in her voice, as though she were waiting for Archie to take the bait.

  He’d moved out of the house later that week. Six months later she was dead.

  Malicious or not, Poppa had professed to love her, expressing his devastation at her loss by disappearing into seclusion. It was the preparations for her interment that prompted that last visit, three or four months back. Poppa had been in a stupor, stumbling through the halls muttering, “She’s still here, Archie, not gone, still here, in the kitchen, in my study, still here.” It had been more than a little creepy, but it was simply the ramblings of a sad old man with little left in the way of reasons to live.

  And then Archie was awakened late last night by a call from Poppa, his voice scratching over a line of static, asking Archie to come see him, he needed him. And—perhaps most unnerving of all—he was afraid.

  Nothing scared Poppa. He had always been hard and without emotion. But he had sounded genuinely afraid on the phone, claiming someone or something had come into his study while he was napping. His voice had dropped to a whisper at one point: “It’s listening, Archie. Please come.”

  Archie wondered if the man’s isolation had caused his mind to tip over into delusion. He promised to come by first thing in the morning, but got busy with other things. At one point he actually wondered if the call had been a dream. Until Poppa called again less than an hour ago, uttering one word before the line went dead: “Please…”

  Now, after what seemed several minutes, Archie finally came to Poppa’s study, a room that had always reeked of stale cigars and hopelessness. Beneath those familiar smells he caught the odor of something else—the rank stench of defecation.

  He almost turned back. What if he was dead in there?

  No, he called your name. Get a grip.

  He peered into the gloom, the single, guttering candle doing almost nothing to illuminate the room.

  The walls—floor-to-ceiling books—absorbed what little light the candle afforded. The books were all paperbacks, thousands of them, not on shelves but stacked atop each other, many fallen into heaps, spilling across the floor, spreading like a fungus.

  “Poppa?”

  From the far corner of the room, his voice an exhalation that caused the candle flame to waver and almost go out: “Archie. Come in, please come in.”

  It sounds like maybe he is dying, he thought. And about time, too.

  Archie felt little shame at wishing the man dead, gone from this world. He had done little to gain affection, less to gain respect.

  He entered the room, his eyes adjusting further, and saw Poppa sitting in one of two ancient wingback chairs. Between the chairs was a low gilt table holding the candle and a crystal decanter full of dark liquor. The candlelight threw glints of cheap light off the table, brighter gleams off the decanter, still sharper flashes from the old man’s rheumy eyes.

  Archie’s attention was drawn back to the decanter. He was suddenly thirsty for whatever was inside. A drink would be just the thing, settle his nerves, settle his racing imagination.

  “Come, Archie. Sit. Comfort an old man.”

  Archie approached but did not sit. Thirst or no, he suddenly felt an urgent need to be somewhere else. Anywhere else. Poppa did not look like he was dying…he looked dead.

  “Poppa,” Archie began, but there were no words to follow.

  The man sat deep in his chair, everything about him appearing sunken, deflated. Fingers that were nothing more than paper-thin skin stretched over misshapen bones gripped a tumbler of murky liquid. Archie watched as the man’s hand moved, an excruciatingly slow movement, lifting the glass to his lips, those lips reaching for the rim seconds before the glass was near enough. He watched the dead man drink, transfixed as the peeling lips slurped at the liquor, sharp Adam’s apple bobbing and clicking with each swallow. Those watery eyes never left Archie, never moved, staring at and through him to something Archie hoped never to see.

  Archie retreated a step, then another.

  Finally, Poppa finished the glass, returning hand to lap in the same slow-motion manner. “Please, Archie. Humor an old man. Have a last drink with your Poppa. Sit with me a while.”

  He’s not dead, Arch, you know that. He’s just old. A very old man who has lost everything. He’s alone and you’re all he has left.

  Archie blinked at the last thought.

  …all he has left. Yes, yes.

  “He has money, you know…”

  Archie was this man’s only surviving relative. While Poppa wasn’t filthy rich, he did own prime real estate in one of the most expensive cities in the world. And he’d made a good deal of money in the ‘Forties and ‘Fifties as a Hollywood writer, working on many films considered to be classics.

  That’s why he brought me here. He’s dying. He knows it and he wants to tell me himself that he’s leaving me something. Archie felt a chill. Maybe he’s leaving me everything.

  Archie nodded and tried on a smile that felt more or less real. “Sure, Poppa.” He managed to unlock his knees, to move toward the open chair. He was reaching for the decanter when Poppa’s brittle voice stopped him with a word:

  “No.” His voice was not raised, but the word somehow snapped against Archie’s ears with the sound of glass breaking.

  Archie flinched, pulling his hand back as if burned. “Poppa? You wanted me to drink with you…?”

  Why am I so thirsty? But not for water. No, I want whatever is in that decanter.

  “Yes, yes, yes. But…not that one. You…you wouldn’t care for it. Over there, take something from the cart by the fireplace.”

  Archie hesitated, but did not question the old man’s eccentricity. The bar cart held an array of bottles and decanters.

  Doesn’t matter where it comes from, just get something in you, settle your damn nerves.

  He poured a glass of clear liquor that he assumed was vodka, taking it neat since there were no ice cubes in evidence.

  He returned and sat in the open chair, surprised when his empty hand almost began reaching for the decanter. He blinked, pulled his hand back. He noticed his grandfather had already refilled his glass, and lifted his own glass in a toast. “To family,” Archie said, not sure why he’d chosen a toast so bloated with irony.

  He watched again as Poppa lifted his glass, draining the contents in a single, long swallow.

  How is he still conscious? he thought, and took a long sip of his own drink. It was vodka. Cheap, warm, and wholly unpleasant.

  “I’m scared, Archie,” the man said, and Archie saw tears gleaming in his eyes.

  Archie opened his mouth to speak. Whatever he was about to say died before reaching his lips when he noticed Poppa’s glass, still in that tremoring bone-grip, still full to the brim.
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  How did he refill that without me seeing it?

  Poppa began to lift the glass again, his eyes never leaving Archie’s. “I’m so very, very scared. Is that what you wanted to hear? Is that a fitting response to your little game?”

  Archie watched the man drink, watched the glass tilt, empty, then refill as he settled the glass back between his legs. As he watched the liquid in the glass stop just short of overflow, he noticed the stain at his grandfather’s crotch, a darkened wet patch that continued onto the fabric of the chair and onto the floor.

  He’s pissed himself, he thought, then remembered the odor that he had almost become accustomed to since entering the room. More than that, he shit his pants.

  “Poppa…what’s happening? How long have you been sitting here? And…what game? Tell me what’s happening, please.”

  I should have come earlier.

  Poppa’s hand began to lift and he forced it back into his lap, his arm trembling with the effort. He spoke through gritted teeth: “It won’t let me move, son. The worst part—the part that scares me most—is that I…I don’t think I want to move.” His hand lifted. “I can’t stop it…I don’t want to stop it.”

  He emptied the glass yet again, and this time, as the glass filled and slowly descended to his lap, the old man puked down his shirt. There was no convulsion, almost no noise at all. He simply opened his mouth and vomited, a look of deep sadness dragging at his features.

  Archie recoiled at the smell. It was the reek of cheap wine, but it was also the smell of long-dead flesh left to putrefy in an enclosed room.

  This room. Jesus…

  “…Cary Grant,” Poppa was saying.

  Archie blinked and looked at him, confused. “I’m sorry, Poppa?”

  Poppa drank. This time he kept it down. “The one with Cary Grant. That one where they had me tinker with the script. Remember?”

  Archie watched the old man, wondering if he was insane.

  No, not insane. Maybe he really is already dead. The smell, the liquor refilling itself…this is all some kind of dream or illusion.