Something Wicked This Way Comes

And mother was leafing the library books.

‘Oh, these are fine, Willy!’

So Will just stood with Cooger and Dark on his tongue and said:

‘Boy, the wind really flew us home. Streets full of paper blowing.’

Dad did not flinch at this.

‘Anything new, Dad?’

Dad’s hand still lay tucked in the side of the chair. He lifted a grey, slightly worried, very tired gaze to his son:

‘Stone lion blew off the library steps. Prowling the town now looking for Christians. Won’t find any. Got the only one no in captivity here, and she’s a good cook.’

‘Bosh,’ said Mom.

Walking upstairs, Will heard what he half expected to hear.

A soft fluming sigh as something fresh was tossed on the fire. In his mind, he saw Dad standing at the hearth looking down as the paper crinkled to ash:

‘. . .COOGER . . . DARK . . . CARNIVAL . . . WITCH . . . WONDERS. . .’

He wanted to go back down and stand with Dad hands out, to be warmed by the fire.

Instead he went slowly up to shut the door of his room.

Some nights, abed, Will put his ear to the wall to listen, and if his folks talked things that were right, he stayed, and if not right he turned away. If it was about time and passing years or himself or town or just the general inconclusive way God ran the world, he listened warmly, comfortably, secretly, for it was usually Dad talking. He could not often speak with Dad anywhere in the world, inside or out, but this was different. There was a thing in Dad’s voice, up, over, down, easy as a hand winging soft in the air like a white bird describing flight pattern, made the ear want to follow and the mind’s eye to see.

And the odd thing in Dad’s voice was the sound truth makes being said. The sound of truth, in a wild roving land of city or plain country lies, will spell any boy. Many nights Will drowsed this way, his senses like stopped clocks long before that half-singing voice was still. Dad’s voice was a midnight school, teaching deep fathom hours, and the subject was life.

So it was this night, Will’s eyes shut, head leaned to the cool plaster. At first Dad’s voice, a Congo drum, boomed softly, horizons away. Mother’s voice, she used her water-bright soprano in the Baptist choir, did not sing, yet sang back replies. Will imagined Dad sprawled talking to the empty ceiling:

‘. . .Will. . .makes me feel so old. . .a man should play baseball with his son. . .’

‘Not necessary,’ said the woman’s voice, kindly. ‘You’re a good man.’

‘—in a bad season. Hell, I was forty when he was born! And you! Who’s your daughter? people say. God, when you lie down your thoughts turn to mush. Hell!’

Will heard the shift of weight as Dad sat up in the dark. A match was being struck, a pipe was being smoked. The wind rattled the windows.

‘. . .man with poster under his arm. . .’

‘. . .carnival. . . ‘ said his mother’s voice, ‘. . .this late in the year?’

Will wanted to turn away, but couldn’t.

‘. . .most beautiful. . .woman. . .in the world,’ Dad’s voice murmured.

Mother laughed softly. ‘You know I’m not.’

No! thought Will, that’s from the handbill! Why doesn’t Dad tell!!?

Because, Will answered himself. Something’s going on. Oh, something is going on!

Will saw that paper frolicked in the trees, its words THE MOST BEAUTIFUL WOMAN, and fever prickled his cheeks. He thought: Jim, the street of the Theatre, the naked people in the stage of that Theatre window, crazy as Chinese opera, darn odd crazy as old Chinese opera, judo, ju-jitsu, Indian puzzles, and now his father’s voice, dreaming off, sad, sadder, saddest, much too much to understand. And suddenly he was scared because Dad wouldn’t talk about the handbill he had secretly burned. Will gazed out the window. There! Like a milkweed plume! White paper danced in the air.

‘No,’ he whispered, ‘no carnival’s coming this late. It can’t!’ He hid under the covers, switched on his flashlight, opened a book. The first picture he saw was a prehistoric reptile trap-drumming a night sky a million years lost.

Heck, he thought, in the rush I got Jim’s book he’s got one of mine.

But it was a pretty fine reptile.

And flying toward sleep, he thought he heard his father, restless, below. The front door shut. His father was going back to work late, for no reason, with brooms, or books, downtown, away. . .away. . .

And mother asleep, content, not knowing he had gone.

9

No one else in the world had a name came so well off the tongue.

‘Jim Nightshade. That’s me.’

Jim stood tall and now lay long in bed, strung together by marsh-grass, his bones easy in his flesh, his flesh easy on his bones. The library books lay unopened-by his relaxed right hand.