The Land Of Laughs Read online

  "David Louis told me that your father was an only child."

  "Do you speak German, Mr. Abbey? No? Well, there is a little German saying that suits David Louis perfectly. 'Dreck mit zwei augen.' Do you understand that? 'Garbage with two eyes.' Some people would translate it 'Shit with two eyes,' but I am feeling charitable tonight." She ran the edge of her fork back and forth over the edge of the table several times. Until then her tone had been calm and amiable, but the "shit" stopped it short. I didn't see her as a woman who cursed much. What came to mind was a picture of Louis in his office, sitting on the canvas couch telling me that bizarre story about Anna and her cats hissing at him with hatred. Her cats. There were no cats. I thought it would be a harmless enough question to ask to clear the air of the "shit" that was still hanging there.

  "Don't you have cats?"

  "Cats? No, never! I hate cats."

  "Did your father have any?"

  "No, He hated most animals. Bull terriers were the only kind of furry beasts that he could stand."

  "Really? But then how did he know animals so well for his books?"

  "Would you like some more coffee?"

  I shook my head so hard it almost fell off. She didn't offer Saxony more tea. I was beginning to think that she wasn't crazy for Sax. But was it because of Saxony's personality or because she was another woman? Competing for me? Afraid not. Sometimes you meet a person and as soon as you touch hands with her there's instant dislike, or vice versa She can be brilliant or beautiful or sexy but you don't like her. If that was the case here, then it was going to make things very difficult. I decided not to think about it until Anna agreed to let us do the biography.

  We stood up, and Saxony led the way into the other room. It was dark now except for whatever came through the windows from the street. It caught edges and half-shapes of the masks, mannequin, and other things, and was, uh, spooky, to say the least. Anna was just in front of me with her hand on the light switch, but she didn't click it on.

  "Father loved the room like this. I used to catch him standing here in the doorway, looking at all of his things in this cat light."

  "'Cat light,' eh? Green Dog's Sorrow, eh?"

  "That's right. You do know your France, don't you?" She turned on the light, and the things that went bump in the night went back to being things, thank God. I do not like: horror movies, horror stories, nightmares, black things. I teach Poe only because I'm told to by my department chairman, and it takes me two weeks to get over "The Telltale Heart" every time I read it. Yes, I like masks and things that are different and fantastic, but enjoying the almost-real and fearing the monstrous are very difierent things. Remember, please, that I'm a coward.

  Saxony sat on the couch and crossed her legs. Petals put a paw up next to her and then looked at Anna for couch approval. When nothing was said, she took it as a "yes" and worked her way up, one slow leg at a time.

  "When he arrived in New York, he went to work for an undertaker. Oh, I'm sorry – would either of you like a brandy or drink of some kind? Some Kahlъa or Tia Maria? I've got everything over there."

  We both said no, and she sank back down into her chair.

  "All of this is a big secret, though. Very few people know about my father's first job."

  I looked at Saxony, but Saxony looked at Anna. Then she spoke for the first time since dinner. "How long did he work for this undertaker?"

  It was a loaded question, because Lucente himself had told me the answer when I saw him. Nine months.

  "Two years." She had the paperweight in her hands again and was rolling it around and around.

  I looked at Saxony, but Saxony looked at Anna.

  "What did he do for him?"

  "Do?" Anna shrugged and smiled at me as if the question wasn't worth answering and wasn't my friend dumb for asking it.

  "Well, he didn't do any normal things because he got sick every time he saw one of the bodies. Really! He said that whenever they called him into the rooms where they did their work, he would take one look and run out for the bathroom! Poor Father, he was never meant to take care of the dead. No, do you know what he did? He cooked. He took care of the kitchen and cleaning the place."

  "He never did any work for the man? Not even after he'd been there awhile?"

  She smiled warmly at me and shook her head. "Never. My father had trouble looking at an animal killed in the road. But you know, I'll tell you a funny story for your biography, Mr. Abbey. Once in a while he would go with them to drive the truck when they picked up a body. This time they got a call to pick up a man whose apartment was on the sixth floor of a walk-up building. There was no elevator. When they got up there they opened the door and the body turned out to be three hundred pounds!"

  "Three hundred? What did they use to get him out of there – a forklift?" Despite the fact that she was probably lying about this too, the idea fascinated me.

  She liked my forklift. She snorted and actually slapped her knee. "No, not quite. What they did was send Father downstairs to make sure that no one was on the stairs or coming into the building. Then when he called out to them that it was all clear, he started back up. Suddenly he heard this big bump. Then bump bump. He looked up through the stairwell and saw them rolling the body down the stairs with the toes of their shoes. Can you imagine that? Can you imagine opening the door to that apartment building and seeing a three-hundred-pound body come bumping down toward you?"

  "You can't be serious."

  She held up the three middle fingers of her right hand, palm-out, and shook her head. "Girl scout's honor,"

  "They rolled him down the stairs? Down six flights of stairs?"

  "Exactly."

  "Well, what'd they do when they got him there? Wasn't he all damaged and everything?"

  "Yes, of course, but then they took him back to the funeral parlor and fixed him with makeup and those things they use. The next day at the funeral, Father said he looked as good as new."

  Baloney or not, it was a good story, and I could detect a bit of her father's narrative flair.

  She put the paperweight back down on the side table. "Would you like to see his study? I think you might be interested."

  "Ms. France, you don't know how much I'd like to see his study!" I was already halfway out of my chair.

  She led the way, Petals second, Saxony, then me. Always the gentleman.

  When I was a boy I used to sit with my brother and sister at the top of our red-carpeted staircase and watch my parents get ready to go out for the evening. We would be in our pajamas and fuzzy brown Roy Rogers slippers and the hall light would touch just the tips of our warm toes. The parents were too far away for us to hear what they were saying to each other, but we were cozy and sleepy and they looked so sleek and beautiful. That was about the only time that I ever saw my father as anything more than just "my pop," who wasn't there most of the time and tried to love us too much when he was. I hadn't thought about that in years – one of those little Proustian memories that are so easy to forget but so cherished when you happen across them again. Hiking up the staircase to France's office brought it all back so clearly that I had a momentary urge to sit down on the steps and feel what it was like again. I wondered if Anna had ever done the same thing with her parents.

  A light went on before I got to the top. Just as I arrived, I caught sight of the three of them disappearing around a dark corner.

  A voice called out, "Are you still there?"

  I quickened my step and called back, "Yes, yes, I'm right behind you."

  The floor was a blond, bare wood that had been carefully stripped and sealed and reminded me of houses in Scandinavia. No tables or chairs or sideboards here, no pictures on the walls. The house seemed to have separate upstairs and downstairs personalities: pure up, cluttered and crazy down. I turned the corner and saw light spilling out of a narrow doorway. No sound of voices or bodies moving around. I came up to it and walked through and was instantly disappointed. There was literally nothing in the ro
om but a large oak rolltop desk and a swivel chair tucked into the leg hole. There was a green blotter on the desk and an old orange Parker "Lucky Curve" fountain pen. Nothing else.

  "It's so empty."

  "Yes, it's very different from the living room. Father said that anything distracted him when he worked, so this is the way he wanted his room." A phone that turned out to be behind the door rang, and she excused herself to answer it. Sax went up to the desk and ran her hand over the top of it.

  "Blinded? What do you mean, blinded? It's impossible. How did it happen?"

  I looked at Saxony and knew that both of us were eavesdropping. Anna's face was tight, and she looked at the floor. She looked more angry than upset.

  "All right, all right. Stay there and I'll come as soon as I can. What? No, stay there." She hung up and ran her hand across her forehead. "I'm sorry, but one of my friends was just hurt in an accident. I have to go to the hospital right away. I'll drop you at your house."

  "I'm sorry. Is there anything we can do? Really, we'll be glad to."

  She shook her head and looked out the window. "No. No, there's nothing." She turned out the light, and without waiting for us, hurried down the hall toward the stairs.

  5

  "Are you awake?" She touched me very lightly on the shoulder with one finger.

  I rolled over in bed so that I was facing her. The light from the full moon came in through the window and cut long white patches across her hair and pale blue nightgown. Even half-asleep, the color reminded me of looking in France's living room before Anna had turned on the lights.

  "Awake? Sax, I'm not only awake, I'm –"

  "Please don't be funny with me, Thomas. I don't want you to be funny now, okay? Please?"

  I couldn't see her face clearly, but I knew from the tone of her voice what it would look like. Eyes impassive, but her lips would be turned down at the corners, and after a while she would start to blink a lot. It was her silent sign that she wanted to be touched and held. As soon as you did, she clutched you twice as hard, and it made you sad and it made you wonder if you had the strength at the moment for both of you – which was what she was demanding.

  "Are you okay, babe?" I cupped the back of her head and felt the clean smoothness of her hair.

  "Yes, but just don't talk now. Hold me, please, and don't talk."

  It had already happened before. Some nights she would get small and scared, convinced that anything good in her life was about to disappear and she wouldn't be able to stop it. I called it her "night fears." She was the first to admit that they were stupid and that it was pure masochism on her part, but she couldn't help it. She said the worst part was that they'd come most often when she was either completely happy or in-the-pits sad and depressed.

  While I held her, I wondered if I'd done something to bring them on this time. I went through a two-second instant replay of the night at Anna's house. Uh-oh; the cold shoulder from Anna. The lousy food. No definite answer on the biography. The casual flirting between Anna and me. What a schmuck I was. I hugged Saxony to me and kept kissing the top of her head. The rubbing and touching and guilt made me want her very much. I rolled her gently onto her back and slid her nightgown up.

  6

  The next morning the sun sneaked into the room and on across the bed about seven o'clock. It woke me with its heat on my face. I hate to get up early when it's not necessary, so I scrooched around and tried to find a shady spot. But Saxony had Scotch-taped herself to me during the night, so moving was hard.

  To top it all off, the door creaked open, Nails trotted in, and leaped up onto the bed. I felt like the three of us were on a life raft in the middle of the ocean, because we were all three huddled up together in the middle of the bed, leaning on the nearest body. I haven't mentioned my claustrophobia before, but sealed in between two hot bodies, the sun frying my head, the sheet wrapped around my feet… I decided that it was time to get up. I patted Nails on the head and gave him a little push. He growled. I thought that it was just a little morning grouchiness, so I patted him again and pushed him again. He growled louder. We looked at each other over a thin pink wave of blanket, but bull terriers have absolutely no expression on their faces, so you never know what's what with them.

  "Nice Nails. Good boy."

  "Why is he growling at you? What did you do to him?" Saxony cuddled a little closer, and I could feel her warm breath on my neck.

  "I didn't do anything. I just gave him a little push so that I could get up."

  "Wow. Do you think that you should do it again?"

  "How do I know? How do I know he won't bite me?" I looked over at her, and she blinked.

  "No, Thomas, I don't think so. He likes you. Remember yesterday?" She sounded convinced.

  "Oh, yeah? Well, today's today, and your arm's not in jeopardy."

  "Then do you plan on staying here all morning?" She smiled and rubbed the flat of her palm across her nose. Thank God she'd snapped back from last night. "Tommy is a chick-en…"

  I looked at Nails and he looked at me. A standoff. The tip of his prune-black nose poked up from behind one of his paws.

  "Mrs. Fletch-er!"

  "Oh, come on, Thomas, don't do that! What if she's still asleep?"

  "Too had. I ain't gonna get bit. Niiiice Nailsy, good boy! Mrs. Fletch-er!"

  We heard footsteps, and a second before she popped her head into the room, Nails jumped off the bed to greet her.

  Saxony started laughing and pulled the pillow over her head.

  "Yes? Good morning."

  "Good morning. Uh, well, Nails was up on the bed and I gave him a little push because I wanted to get up, you see, and, uh, he sort of growled at me. I was afraid that he might mean it."

  "Who, Nails? Naah, never. Watch this." He stood next to her but kept looking at us on the bed. She lifted a foot and gave him a little shove sideways. Without looking at her he growled. He also kept wagging his tail.

  "What do you two want for breakfast? I decided to throw it in for you on your first day. I bet you haven't done any shopping, have you, Saxony?"

  I sat up and pushed my hands through my hair. "You don't have to do that. It's easy for us –"

  "I know I don't have to do anything. What would you like? I make good pancakes and sausages. Yeah, why don't you have my pancakes and sausages."

  We decided to have pancakes and sausages. She left the room and Nails jumped back up on the bed. He climbed over my legs and settled down halfway across Saxony's stomach.

  "Are you okay this morning, Sporty?" I asked.

  "Yes. I just get crazy at night sometimes. I start thinking that everything is going to go wrong, or that you'll go away soon… things like that. I've been doing it all my life. I think it's just because I'm overtired now. Usually the next morning everything is okay again."

  "You've got a little split personality in you, huh?" I pulled a lock of hair away from her eyes.

  "Yes, completely. I know what's going on in me when it happens, but there's nothing I can do to stop it." There was a pause, and she took my hand. "Do you think I'm crazy, Thomas? Do you hate me when it happens?"

  "Don't be ridiculous, Sax. You know me by now – if I hated you, I would have gotten away from you. Stop thinking that way." I squeezed her hand and stuck out my tongue at her. She pulled the pillow over her head, and Nails tried to shove his head under there with her.

  I looked out the window, and the garden was all sunny and moving back and forth in the wind. Bees hovered over some of the plants, and a redbird lit on the porch railing not three feet away.

  Early morning in Galen, Missouri. A few cars drove by, and I yawned. Then a little kid passed, licking an ice-cream cone and running his free hand along the top of Mrs. Fletcher's fence. Tom Sawyer with a bright green pistachio cone. I dreamily watched him and wondered how anyone could eat ice cream at eight o'clock in the morning.

  Without looking either way, the boy started across the street and was instantly punched into the air by a
pickup truck. The truck was moving fast, so he was thrown far beyond the view from our window. When he disappeared, he was still going up.

  "Holy shit!" I snatched my pants off a chair and ran for the door. I heard Saxony call, but I didn't stop to explain. It was the second time I'd seen someone hit by a car. Once in New York, and the person landed right on his head. Going down the porch steps two at a time, I thought how unreal these goddamned things looked. One minute a person's there, talking to a friend or eating a green ice-cream cone. The next thing you know you've heard a fast thump and there's a body sailing away through the air.

  The driver was out of the truck and stooped over the body. The first thing I saw when I got there was the green ice cream, half-covered with dirt and pebbles and already beginning to melt on the black pavement.

  No one else was around. I came up to the man and hesitantly peered over his shoulder. He smelled of sweat and human heat. The boy was on his side on the ground, his legs splayed apart in such a way that he looked as if he'd been stop-framed, running. He was bleeding from the mouth and his eyes were wide open. No, one of his eyes was wide open; the other was half-shut and fluttering.

  "Is there anything I can do? I'll call an ambulance, okay? I mean, you stay here and I'll go call the ambulance."

  The man turned around, and I recognized him from the barbecue. One of the cooks at the grill. One of the big jokers.

  "All this is wrong. I knew it, though. Yeah, sure, go get that ambulance. I can't tell nothin' yet." His face was pinched and frightened as hell, but the tone of his voice was what surprised me. It was half-angry, half-self-pitying. There was no fear there at all. No remorse either. It had to be shock: horrible events make people act crazy and say mad things. The poor fool was probably realizing that the rest of his life was now shadowed, no matter what happened to the boy. He'd have the guilt of having run over a child to live with for the next fifty years. God, I pitied him.