Black House

With a low, stressful sound — half growl and half howl — Andy yanks the closet door wide, setting off a chatter of hangers. He crouches, hands up in fists, looking like some ancient sparring partner from the Gym Time Forgot.

"Come outta there, you f**king — "

No one there. Four shirts, one jacket, two ties, and three pairs of pants hanging like dead skin. A battered old suitcase that looks as if it has been kicked through every Greyhound Bus terminal in North America. Nothing else. Not a goddamn th —

But there is. There’s something on the floor beneath the shirts. Several somethings. Almost half a dozen somethings. At first Andy Rails-back either doesn’t understand what he’s seeing or doesn’t want to understand. Then it gets through to him, imprints itself on his mind and memory like a hoofprint, and he tries to scream. He can’t. He tries again and nothing comes out but a rusty wheeze from lungs that feel no larger than old prune skins. He tries to turn around and can’t do that, either. He is sure George Potter is coming, and if Potter finds him here, Andy’s life will end. He has seen something George Potter can never allow him to talk about. But he can’t turn. Can’t scream. Can’t take his eyes from the secret in George Potter’s closet.

Can’t move.

Because of the fog, nearly full dark has arrived in French Landing unnaturally early; it’s barely six-thirty. The blurry yellow lights of Maxton Elder Care look like the lights of a cruise ship lying becalmed at sea. In Daisy wing, home of the wonderful Alice Weathers and the far less wonderful Charles Burnside, Pete Wexler and Butch Yerxa have both gone home for the day. A broad-shouldered, peroxide blonde named Vera Hutchinson is now on the desk. In front of her is a book entitled E-Z Minute Crosswords. She is currently puzzling over 6 Across: Garfield, for example. Six letters, first is F, third is L, sixth is E. She hates these tricky ones.

There’s the swoosh of a bathroom door opening. She looks up and sees Charles Burnside come shuffling out of the men’s in his blue robe and a pair of yellow-and-black striped slippers that look like great fuzzy bumblebees. She recognizes them at once.

"Charlie?" she asks, putting her pencil in her crossword book and closing it.

Charlie just goes shuffling along, jaw hanging down, a long runner of drool also hanging down. But he has an unpleasant half grin on his face that Vera doesn’t care for. This one may have lost most of his marbles, but the few left in his head are mean marbles. Sometimes she knows that Charlie Burnside genuinely doesn’t hear her when she speaks (or doesn’t understand her), but she’s positive that sometimes he just pretends not to understand. She has an idea this is one of the latter times.

"Charlie, what are you doing wearing Elmer’s bee slippers? You know his great-granddaughter gave those to him."

The old man — Burny to us, Charlie to Vera — just goes shuffling along, in a direction that will eventually take him back to D18. Assuming he stays on course, that is.

"Charlie, stop."

Charlie stops. He stands at the head of Daisy’s corridor like a machine that has been turned off. His jaw hangs. The string of drool snaps, and all at once there’s a little wet spot on the linoleum beside one of those absurd but amusing slippers.

Vera gets up, goes to him, kneels down before him. If she knew what we know, she’d probably be a lot less willing to put her defenseless white neck within reach of those hanging hands, which are twisted by arthritis but still powerful. But of course she does not.

She grasps the left bee slipper. "Lift," she says.

Charles Burnside lifts his right foot.

"Oh, quit being such a turkey," she says. "Other one."

Burny lifts his left foot a little, just enough for her to get the slipper off.

"Now the right one."

Unseen by Vera, who is looking at his feet, Burny pulls his penis from the fly of his loose pajama pants and pretends to piss on Vera’s bowed head. His grin widens. At the same time, he lifts his right foot and she removes the other slipper. When she looks back up, Burny’s wrinkled old tool is back where it belongs. He considered baptizing her, he really did, but he has created almost enough mischief for one evening. One more little chore and he’ll be off to the land of dreamy dreams. He’s an old monster now. He needs his rest.

"All right," Vera says. "Want to tell me why one of these is dirtier than the other?" No answer. She hasn’t really expected one. "Okay, beautiful. Back to your room or down to the common room, if you want. There’s microwave popcorn and Jell-O pops tonight, I think. They’re showing The Sound of Music. I’ll see that these slippers get back to where they belong, and you taking them will be our little secret. Take them again and I’ll have to report you, though. Capisce?"

Burny just stands there, vacant . . . but with that nasty little grin lifting his wrinkled old chops. And that light in his eyes. He capisces, all right.

"Go on," Vera says. "And you better not have dropped a load on the floor in there, you old buzzard."

Again she expects no reply, but this time she gets one. Burny’s voice is low but perfectly clear. "Keep a civil tongue, you fat bitch, or I’ll eat it right out of your head."

She recoils as if slapped. Burny stands there with his hands dangling and that little grin on his face.

"Get out of here," she says. "Or I really will report you." And a great lot of good that would do. Charlie is one of Maxton’s cash cows, and Vera knows it.

Charlie recommences his slow walk (Pete Wexler has dubbed this particular gait the Old Fucks’ Shuffle), now in his bare feet. Then he turns back. The bleary lamps of his eyes regard her. "The word you’re looking for is feline. Garfield’s a feline. Got it? Stupid cow."